


With Friends Like These

by KouriArashi



Series: The Sum of Its Parts [6]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Bullying, Canon Typical Violence, Crossover, Detective Stiles, F/M, Homophobia, M/M, Multi, Mystery, Pack Dynamics, Pack Feels, Pack Mother Stiles Stilinski, Past Sexual Abuse, Sassy, Veronica Mars - Freeform, sexual assault of minors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-08
Updated: 2013-12-19
Packaged: 2017-12-28 19:14:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 20
Words: 111,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/995529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KouriArashi/pseuds/KouriArashi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One thing Stiles is looking forward to about a semester in Neptune is going to a place where there isn’t magic and monsters lurking in every corner. Or so he thinks. Then the bodies start dropping . . .</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, friends, here we go! First things first: you are all wonderful and amazing and have given me so much love and support; I never would have imagined I would have felt brave enough to write a Veronica Mars crossover set in my own AU, but here I am! Apologies in advance for the super long author’s notes at the beginning here, but I feel there are important points to make.
> 
> First things first: if you’re just wandering in because you saw a TW/VM crossover and thought that would be awesome, I should probably warn you that this is part of an ongoing series which began as a canon-divergent AU and now has very little in common with canon. Uh, you’re welcome to try to read it anyway if you want, but you might find it confusing. 
> 
> I have done my best to make this plausible; it requires some small stretch of the imagination but the universes mesh better than you would think. The first few chapters are mostly going to be the characters meeting each other and interacting and (hopefully) being awesome, but there will be a supernatural mystery for Stiles and Veronica to solve together.
> 
> If you have not seen VM, read this. If you have, skip to the next section.
> 
> Here's the 30-seconds-all-you-need-to-know version of Veronica Mars. The show takes place in a California beach town called Neptune, which is populated by 90% rich snobs. Veronica is a teenager whose father was sheriff but lost his job due to a prominent murder case, which was the murder of her best friend, Lilly Kane. During season one of the show, she manages to solve the case, bring the murderer to justice, et c. She does this by being really smart and not giving a fuck what anyone else thinks of her and never backing down (so you can already see that she’ll get along grandly with Stiles). Her dad is now a private investigator and she works for him. 
> 
> Other characters you will care about are Logan, Veronica’s snarky boyfriend, and Mac, Veronica’s hacker friend. They are both awesome. There are other characters both main and minor that wind in and out, but I’m going to do my best to keep their involvement to a minimum, to keep things easy on you guys and not overload my already-large cast.
> 
> There will be some brief exposition in the first chapter or two, and of course a little as we go along, but if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask.
> 
> If you have seen Veronica Mars, read this section. If not, you can skip it. 
> 
> So the story is going to start at the beginning of what would be season 2, and season 2’s villain is who I’m going to use to frame the mystery. But there will be no bus crash because the murders will be done using more supernatural means, for Teen Wolf benefits.
> 
> There are some things I won’t be using and/or are just pretending didn’t happen, because this story is gonna be enough of a beast without me trying to work in the *entire* season 2 plot, which is pretty complex. So here are a few things I’m cutting out to keep things simple. Sorry if any of these were elements you wanted to see.
> 
> \- The murder of Felix Toombs/the Fitzpatrick-PCH turf war  
> \- Wallace’s real father and his sojourn to Chicago  
> \- Jackie Cook. And her baseball-playing father.  
> \- Meg and her pregnancy will be touched upon, but since I’m not doing the bus crash, it won’t be very involved.  
> \- Anything that keeps Veronica and Logan from being a snarky OTP because . . . let’s face it. They’re my OTP. And if Felix didn’t get murdered, Logan didn’t lose his shit during the summer, and they never broke up, right? RIGHT?! *sobs* Just let me have that . . .
> 
> The basic premise I’m using is that Sheriff Lamb got booted out of office (because come on, I can’t believe that wouldn’t actually happen, his treatment of Veronica post-date-rape alone should have gotten him sacked) amid rumors of corruption and incompetence, and Sheriff Stilinski gets brought in to basically kick a bunch of ass until the department is functional again. Like I said, it’s a little flimsy, but I’ve seen premises for crossovers that are a lot sillier. ^_^
> 
> Another thing that’s important to note is that although Teen Wolf exists in a homophobia-free universe (or so Jeff Davis tells us), that is not the same for Veronica Mars. VM actually aired about 10 years ago now, and in retrospect it really is amazing how much progress has been made in the last decade or so. So there were several incidents in VM that had homophobia as a central theme, and I’ve decided to use that here both as a character development/plot development issue. So this story will be somewhat triggery for both homophobia and bullying. 
> 
> You guys are super.
> 
> Let’s go!

 

It’s the house that makes everything worth it.

Sure, the pack has a nice house in Beacon Hills. They built it just for themselves, so it would have everything they wanted. It wasn’t small by any means. But it also wasn’t a house in the exclusive 90909 zip code. It didn’t have an ocean view or a hot tub or a walk-in closet in _every_ bedroom. It didn’t have marble counters in the kitchen or an actual stained glass window in the living room.

The decision that had brought them to Neptune had been a complicated one. It was full of politics and money and implications about Sheriff Stilinski’s career. _Someone_ had to take over the position of sheriff in Neptune since Don Lamb’s unceremonious firing, but nobody who actually lived in Neptune was willing to run for the position. There were rumors of corruption, allegations of abuse of power. Eventually, the powers that be had decided to bring in an outside party who could whip the department into shape. It would only be for a few months, they had promised Stilinski. Six at the outside. Then they would hold another election and get someone local to take the position.

In the end, it had simply come down to three things. 1) Sheriff Stilinski was going to take the position. Higher forces than him were going to maneuver him into it whether he liked it or not. 2) There was no way that Stiles was going to let his father go to a place like Neptune without him. 3) There was no way the rest of the pack was going to let their alpha go _anywhere_ without them.

Which brought on almost a month of ‘can we actually pull this off’, a month full of paperwork and real estate and parents who were in the know versus parents who weren’t, pack members who had jobs versus those who didn’t, student transcripts and class catalogs, research into whether or not there was a local pack whose territory they would be stepping on, and endless speculation about how they would explain this to parties who weren’t clued in. Eventually, everything was sorted out. Scott’s bummed that he’ll miss lacrosse season in Beacon Hills, but is mollified somewhat that Neptune has a great lacrosse team he can be part of. Finstock is out of his mind that four of his best players are leaving, but Jackson’s thrilled. (He’ll miss Danny, not that he’ll admit it, but Danny suspects that having the glory of being the star of the lacrosse team all to himself again will make up for it.)

Lydia’s excited because Neptune High offers classes that Beacon Hills High doesn’t, and it’s a chance to buff up her transcript a little before she starts applying to colleges. Erica’s happy because she loves warmer weather and the beach and sunbathing. Boyd is anxious because he doesn’t like leaving his siblings to fend for themselves, but Trey is fourteen now and swears over and over again that he’s fit for the ‘man of the house’ position. Allison’s wary because she expects her father will be calling to check in on her every five minutes.

Not all the parents were thrilled with this, of course, particularly those who know nothing about werewolves. Scott’s mom accepted ‘I have to go because the pack is going’, and so did Chris and Victoria, albeit begrudgingly.  Lydia’s mom didn’t have a problem with ‘It’s this Future Business Leaders of America thing’, and of course Isaac’s father is no longer in the picture. Boyd’s parents were completely baffled by the concept but didn’t actively have a problem with it ‘as long as you do well in school’. Danny’s parents expressed some concern that really, they were glad he had new friends, but wasn’t this a little much? Danny reminded them that he’d be leaving for college in a year anyway, so this is like a pre-college experience, and besides, if he can get an internship at Kane software, his career is basically made.

Not surprisingly, it was Erica’s parents who were the hardest to convince. Her mother is still clingy despite the fact that she’s been seizure-free for over a year, and her father has never _quite_ gotten over the fact that Stiles and the pack turned her without getting permission from her parents. Erica argued with them for over a week and came close to pulling the ‘well, I’m eighteen now so I can do whatever I want and you can’t stop me’ card, which Stiles convinces her not to pull because her father would never speak to them again.

In the end, after some thorough adult intervention, Erica’s parents allow her to go. She bargains down from skype sessions every night and a visit home every weekend to phone calls every night, skype sessions every weekend, and a visit home once a month. That’s okay with everyone else, because they figure they’ll want to go home once a month or so anyway. All of them have parents who will relax somewhat given that agreement. Neptune is ninety miles north of San Diego, which makes it over a six hour drive. Nobody will be looking to make that drive on a regular basis.

It takes so long to get all the details sorted out that the packing is very last minute, Stiles is sure he’s forgotten half of what he’ll need, and he feels like he hasn’t slept in a month. Melissa McCall has agreed to house-sit for the Stilinskis. Derek rather reluctantly gave Chris Argent the keys to the Hale family property, so he can check out any disturbances. He would have rather somebody else – anybody else – but Chris is the only person who could actually take care of a supernatural threat if one happened to turn up.

That’s one thing Stiles _is_ looking forward to about Neptune. As far as he can tell, there’s no supernatural influences there. No wolf packs. No sorcerers. No covens. Not even an occult shop or a supernaturally-themed nightclub.

He doesn’t say any of this out loud, though, because he is well aware that there’s no faster way to jinx himself. He just says, ‘yeah, Neptune, sure’ because it’s good for his father’s career for adult reasons that are way over his head.

And because the house is awesome.

“I could seriously live here forever,” he says dreamily, sitting on a swinging porch chair and staring out at the ocean.

Derek shrugs a little. “It’s nice, but . . .”

“I know. Wolves in the city.” Stiles gives his shoulder a nudge. “But it’ll be nice for a little while. It’s a change of pace, if nothing else.” Which might be good for all of them. They love the house, they love Beacon Hills, but a lot of bad shit has happened there. Maybe this can be some sort of vacation for all of them.

“Well, you can’t sit out here all night,” Derek points out. “You have school tomorrow.”

“Killjoy.” Stiles sticks his tongue out but goes inside anyway. Since they had multiple cars, they managed to make it in one trip. The house was furnished. It’s a time-share owned by a local company that agreed to let the Stilinski family have it at a somewhat reduced price for their time in Neptune, after some string-pulling. They brought their own clothes and books and toiletries, but almost everything else is already there. There’s an impressive entertainment system, a room full of exercise equipment, and a fully loaded kitchen. It even has an espresso machine, which Sheriff Stilinski quickly removed before Stiles could notice it was there.

Just as Stiles is going into the house to start unpacking his boxes of clothes and things, his father comes in through the front door. He looks tired and frustrated. “First day on the job was already that bad?” Stiles asks, trying not to tense up.

Sheriff Stilinski all but throws his hands into the air. “That damned place is like an Abbott and Costello sketch. Nobody knows anything. When I ask a question, everyone looks at the person next to them. Even if they know the answer, they don’t dare give it because they’re afraid they’re wrong. The only person who seems to know anything is this young guy named Leo, and he kept thinking better of saying something no matter how much I tried to encourage him. And if I hear the words ‘that’s not how Lamb did things’ one more time, I might pop a vessel.”

Stiles is frowning and mentally revising how much sodium his father will be getting in his diet, since it’s obvious that this job is going to be making his blood pressure go up. “Well, if I recall correctly, that _is_ why they brought you in.”

“Yeah, I’m sure I’ll be able to make a lot of progress with this group of monkeys,” Stilinski says, “particularly when I’ve been giving the power to hire new people if I want, but not fire the old ones. Eventually I got sick of the blank looks and asked ‘so who actually solves the crimes in Neptune’ and everyone was like ‘ha ha, good one, Sheriff’, and looking at each other all uncomfortable until Leo just said ‘usually Keith Mars and his daughter Veronica’.”

Stiles thinks back to the research he’s done about Neptune, which has, of course, been in the news a great deal lately. “Well, that does actually make some sense,” he says. “I mean, we know that they’re the ones responsible for solving the murder of Lilly Kane, so . . .”

“Great,” Stilinski says, rolling his eyes. “The only people in town who can solve crimes are the former sheriff who refused to take the job back – not that I blame him a bit – and his seventeen-year-old daughter.”

“I was only sixteen when I solved your attempted murder,” Stiles points out. “Don’t underestimate us savvy teenagers.”

“I would never,” his father says, and ruffles his hair. “But I can’t exactly hire her as a deputy. Or you, for that matter. Don’t give me that look.”

“Well, why don’t you go talk to her dad?” Stiles suggests. “I mean, he could probably at least give you the scoop on the way things are _supposed_ to run around here.”

“I don’t know, kid.” Stilinski looks a little wary. “He made it pretty clear he didn’t want the job.”

“So did you,” Stiles says sourly, and his father raises his hands in surrender. “But my point is that you aren’t his enemy. He’s got to know that you’re an outside party brought in to clean up the mess that Lamb made. So no, he’s not gonna go work for you, but he’ll probably spare ten minutes to chat. He must still care about Neptune in general, or he would have left a long time ago.”

“Well, that’s fair,” his father says, and sighs. “I’ll think it over. How’s your unpacking going?”

“Uh, great,” Stiles says.

“You haven’t started yet, have you.”

“Not a single box, no.”

Stilinski shakes his head. “Me neither. Let’s get to work. Looks like we’re in this for the long haul.”

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

If there’s such a thing as a typical day in the office of Mars Investigations, Veronica is still waiting to see it. She’s tapping away at her laptop, waiting for it to finish the search she’s running while she idly scribbles down the answers to trigonometry problems in her notebook. It’s after five o’clock, but she often stays late when she’s working on something, and hasn’t bothered to lock the door. It neither bothers her nor startles where she there’s the familiar jingle and somebody walks in.

The man who comes in _does_ surprise her, though. He’s of medium height and build, probably about the same age as her father, with a rough, careworn face. That’s not unusual. But the uniform he’s wearing and the sheriff’s badge displayed prominently over his pocket draws her attention. He wears it well. Not like Lamb, who always looked like a kid playing dress up. She puts on her charming smile and says, “You must be that new sheriff I’ve been hearing all about!”

He gives an amused huff. “Now why does that not surprise me?” he asks, and holds out a hand. “Tom Stilinski.” He gives her a professional look up and down and decides that she looks pretty much like what he had expected her to look like, given the descriptions he had gotten from the officers. They ranged from supermodel, to the devil herself, to a little school girl. Taking all of that into account, he came up with ‘normal kid, kind of pretty’. Lo and behold, he was right.

“Veronica Mars,” she says, shaking his offered hand. “My dad’s not in right now. Out chasing a bail jumper. So what can I do for you, sheriff? You want the skinny on the residents of our fair city?”

“Absolutely. When I tried to get it from my officers, it was like pulling teeth. Once I established that they were in fact officers of the law, I asked who actually sorts out crime around here and it turns out that that would be you and your dad. So yes, I would appreciate the ‘skinny’.” He claims a seat on the end of the lobby’s sofa. “But remember I’m old, so try to use words I understand.”

Veronica blinks at him. She feels inexplicably slow. This isn’t how things work around Neptune. “You’re serious.”

“You weren’t?” he asks, raising his eyebrows at her.

“I guess I’m just not used to someone around here in a uniform actually caring about what I have to say,” she says, with a shrug. “I mean . . . I was as happy as anyone when Lamb got unceremoniously fired . . . actually, I was about eight times as happy as everyone else! But when my dad declined their offer to take the interim post, I figured they would bring in some new jackass who’d suck up to the rich folks, ignore the rest of us, and everything would just be business as usual.”

Stilinski lets out a snort, taking her profanity in stride. It’s about six levels cleaner than Erica’s. “I have no reason to suck up to anyone. This is an interim position. My job and home are waiting for me regardless of whether the wealthy residents of Neptune like me or not. What I was hired to do was act like a competent sheriff and try to get the department back into functioning order.” He waves a hand. “That’s clearly going to require a lot of work, a lot of coffee, and a fair amount of aspirin. In the meantime I need to know what I’m dealing with. I’ll talk to Mr. Mars as well, but since he’s not here, I’ll start with you.”

Veronica can’t help but look mildly impressed at this speech. “Okay, well . . . you’ve got your basic rich guys who think they can do whatever they want. They’re usually drunk. Don’t bother to pull them over for DUIs; their lawyers will get them out of it. Then you’ve got everyone else. You know, the stepping stones for the rich people. Half the town works at Kane software, despite recent . . . problems with their command structure. Then you’ve got the PCHers, standard biker gang but they’re actually not too bad at keeping violent crime corralled in their corner. And then there’s the Fitzpatricks, your basic  city mob who keep all the rich kids supplied with E and heroin, et cetera. They’re untouchable. Don’t bother.”

There’s a moment while Stilinski considers this. “I don’t expect the corporate shake-up will affect the life of the average Kane employee, will it? Unless the company itself is in danger, but I haven’t heard anything like that.” Danny’s family has been keeping up on the corporate gossip lately. “The bikers, do they deal in drugs? And you mentioned the Fitzpatricks. Are there racial divides I should be aware of? Are drugs a _problem_ at your school? Or just a presence, because they happen at every school. Are the social classes divided by neighborhood? Because I’d like to know where the lines are.”

Veronica just stares at him for a long moment, then smiles and says, “Excuse me,” as she reaches for the phone.

“Who are you calling?” Stilinski asks curiously.

“Cho’s Pizza,” she says. “I have a feeling that this little meeting is going to take a while.”

His face lights up. “Get a meat lover’s. With extra cheese. I’ll pay.”

Veronica sees the expression on his face and smiles. “Wife’s got you on a diet, huh?”

Stilinski’s expression turns a little wistful and he turns his wedding ring on his finger, worrying at it a little but not trying to hide it. Everyone in Beacon Hills knows that the sheriff lost his wife. It isn’t a secret. “Son. But yeah, same idea.”

Veronica files this away like she files everything away. “Hey, Hamilton. Got time for an order for Mars? Yeah. Large, thick crust, half pepperoni and mushrooms, half meat lover’s but _not_ the spicy sausage.” She cups a hand over the phone and mouths, “Trust me.” Back in her normal voice she adds, “Extra cheese. Yeah? Okay, thanks.” She hangs up and says, “How’d your son feel about coming to the world’s most awesome beach city?”

“He didn’t like the sheriff’s success rate, but he thinks the real estate is nice.”

“Can’t argue with that.” Veronica reaches into one of her drawers and pulls out a map. “Okay. Here’s how the lines are drawn.”

They spend almost an hour talking about the different factions in Neptune. Stilinski takes notes and carefully steers away from anything about the Lilly Kane murder, although he knows all the details. He figures Veronica doesn’t want to talk about it, and since it’s been solved, it’s really not anything he needs to know about. She hears the doorbell jingle just as they’re finishing up the pizza, glances at the clock, and says, “But you know who you really need to watch out for? That kid Logan Echolls. He’s a real bad boy.”

“My ears are burning,” Logan says as he pokes his head around the corner, into the lobby.

Stilinski straightens up and looks between the two. “Somehow I think you can take care of him yourself. Or is this where I’m supposed to show him out for you?”

“Oh, no, I can handle him,” Veronica says.

“Any time,” Logan adds, with a smile that’s obviously supposed to be suggestive.

“Okay, adult here, in uniform,” Stilinski says, although he’s clearly amused. “Try to spare me the sordid details. I like to be able to claim plausible deniability in all teenaged romances.” He gives the smile that he uses on Stiles when he wants the teenager to please just stop, for the love of God. Then he holds his hand out to Logan, like they’re both reasonable adults. “Hi. Tom Stilinski.”

“The new sheriff.” Logan shakes his hand and says, “Veronica’s gotten herself into trouble already, huh? Weren’t you going to try to turn over a new leaf?”

“Oh, well, you know me,” Veronica says, laughing.

“Is this a big leaf?” Stilinski says. “Do I need to go look up your record?”

“Of course not,” she says.

“Hardly anything she’s done has been officially recorded anyway,” Logan says, and then leans down to give her a kiss. “Mwah.”

Sheriff Stilinski grins. “So you’re one of those. I’ll have to make sure I get all the computer passwords and locks changed down at the station tomorrow.” He waits to see the look on her face. It’s sure to be amusing.

Her eyebrows arch for a minute, but then she laughs. Logan doesn’t look quite as amused. “But then who’s going to solve all the crime around here?” He looks at Veronica. “He didn’t take your crime-fighting cape, did he?”

“I like to think I’ll be getting paid for something. And you shouldn’t wear capes. They get caught in things, or so I’m told. Besides,” he says to Logan with a shrug, “it’s only an interim position. Soon you’ll have elected a new sheriff and Miss Mars can have her honorary badge back.”

“Only if they find someone willing to run,” Logan says with a snort, but he’s winding a strand of Veronica’s blond hair between his fingers and clearly no longer paying attention to the conversation. “Well, I’m sure I’ll be seeing you around, sir.”

“I’m sure,” Sheriff Stilinski says, clearly amused, as he goes on his way.

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

The next morning, Veronica is zoning through her first class of the day when the Pirate broadcast comes on. Meg smiles out from the screen and says, “Well, we’re all going to be seeing some new faces around the school today. A high school in Beacon Hills has had an unfortunate problem with asbestos, and the students there were divided up and sent to nearby high schools. We have eight of their seniors joining us for the first semester this year. Make sure to give them a warm pirate welcome!”

Not ten minutes later, the current journalism teacher has flagged Veronica down and asked her to get a profile on each of the new students, maybe a picture and a quote, something to put in the next issue of the Navigator. Veronica says sure, because why not? It’s not as if her schedule is packed full right now. No major crimes, move along, nothing to see here.

She’s pondering how she’s going to get time to do this when she reaches her study hall. There are two unfamiliar faces there, both boys, and a few minutes later, just before the bell rings, a third one eels in. She’s a young woman who would put any current Neptune senior to shame. She sits down next to them, then leans over and kisses one on the ear. He laughs and gives her a little shove.

“Mr. Wu?” Veronica goes up to the teacher monitoring the study hall. “I know we’re supposed to be quiet and everything, but do you mind if I chat with the new students? I’m supposed to interview them for the Navigator.”

“I suppose it would be all right,” Wu says. “Just keep it down.”

“Thanks!” She jogs back to her seat and then turns her desk around so she’s facing them. “Hi.” She debates which persona to use and decides to go with regular, friendly, hometown girl. No point in doing something more elaborate. “You guys are new here, right?”

“Yup,” the taller, more muscular of the two boys says, with an open smile. “We didn’t realize there’d be an announcement. Or . . . a television in each class room.” His brow furrows for a moment before he gets over that and says, “I’m Scott.”

“I’m Stiles,” the other boy says, “and this is Erica.”

“Your girlfriend?” Veronica presumes.

There’s just a flicker of hesitation before Stiles says, “Yeah.”

Erica makes an amused face at Stiles but then smiles at Veronica. It’s basically friendly, but definitely has more of an edge than Scott’s. “So are you part of the welcoming committee?”

Veronica, unfazed by Erica’s ‘mean girl’ smile, says, “Actually, I work for the school newspaper. They wanted me to just do a quick blurb on each of you. It’s kinda silly, I know, but that’s what passes for news around here.”

“Wow,” Stiles says, scratching behind his ear with a pencil. “Okay. I’m Stiles. What should go in my blurb? Uh . . . I love lacrosse, caffeine, World of Warcraft, various other dorky things. My favorite class is history. My favorite animal is the echidna. Is this the kind of exciting data you’re looking for?”

“The echidna?” Scott says. “They’re so . . .” He makes an odd gesture with his hands. “Really?”

“No, not really, I’m just making shit up,” Stiles says.

“Well, thank God,” Scott replies. “I was starting to think that I didn’t know you at all.”

Meanwhile, Erica is poking at her phone. “Ew. They have a ball sack under their chin.”

Veronica clears her throat and says, “So, you guys knew each other at your old school? I mean, you were friends?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Stiles says. “Actually, Scott and I have been friends since we were kids. When they divided up the kids, I pulled a few strings to bring along my pals rather than get stuck with a bunch of random people I didn’t know, didn’t like, or outright wanted to take a long walk off a short pier. Which there were a lot of. I’m kind of a nerd.”

“But you’re such a lovable nerd!” Erica says. “I’m just a bitch. But I’m hot, so I get by okay. So we like to stick together.”

Scott rubs his hand over his face. “We’re trying to decide if she actually knows what tact is.”

Veronica is grinning, but thinking that maybe she ought to try to bring some format to these interviews before things go off the rails and Mr. Wu gets annoyed. “Okay, okay. Let’s bring it down a notch, marshmallows. The basics. Names. I got Scott, Erica, and . . . Stiles? That must be a nickname, right?”

“Yeah, but I don’t tell people my full name,” Stiles says. “It’s embarrassing.”

“Okay . . .” Veronica says, thinking that if the journalism teacher doesn’t know, she’ll just ask Clemmons. “Are there last names that go with those?”

“Oh, right, sorry,” Scott says, and points to each of them in turn. “McCall, Reyes, Stilinski.”

“Stilinski . . . isn’t that the new sheriff’s name?” Veronica asks, in a totally innocent and curious tone, just to see what it would gain her.

Stiles puffs up a little with obvious pride. “Yeah, that’s my dad. He is the most awesome sheriff ever. I guess when they couldn’t even find anyone willing to _run_ down here, they made some calls and he was willing to come fill in for a bit since I was going to have to change schools anyway, so I just wound up coming down to Neptune.”

Veronica remembered when the position of sheriff had been something to be proud of, before her father had been run out of office and Lamb had made a mockery of it. She hopes Stilinski is braced for the amount of crap he’s going to have to put up with, and silently wishes him the best of luck. He seems like a decent guy, after all. “So how do you like our fair town so far?”

“Eh, it’s so-so,” Stiles says, surprising her with his honesty. “There are some really nice places and the surfing is great, but I swear to God, I went to buy some steaks to grill and couldn’t find a store that didn’t either sell filet mignon for twenty-seven bucks a pound, or ground meat of suspicious origin. Do you guys _have_ a middle class?”

Veronica laughs and tries to keep it quiet at the last minute. “Hi. I’ll be the middle class for your stay. Where are you living? I’ll see if I can direct you to a decent grocery store.”

“I don’t know my own damned address,” Stiles says, and pulls out his phone. “So then I was like, what the hell, might as well splurge once in a while, right? So I get some super expensive steak and I take it up to the front and I’m paying, right? And the woman looks at my cash like she’s never seen freakin’ money before.” He holds out his phone for Veronica to view the address.

“Didn’t you know? Cash is only for third world countries and . . . that’s an 09er address,” she says, and then snaps her mouth closed.

Stiles looks down at his phone. “Uh, is that supposed to mean something to me?”

“Um . . .” Veronica’s not usually at a loss for words, but even she’s not sure how to ask how the sheriff is affording a place like that. “It’s just that homes up there are usually on the, uh, pricier end of things.”

“Oh, yeah,” Stiles says, relieved that that’s all she’s confused about. “We’re just renting it for a few months. See, we have this friend who knows some people, and I guess one of them is a realtor or something? So they found us this house we could rent. And it made sense, because, see, it’s not just me and my dad staying there. We, all of us kids from Beacon Hills, are living there. That’s because Neptune was one of the further away schools to ferry kids to, so they couldn’t commute, but the parents couldn’t all just quit their jobs and move _with_ us, so since we’re all eighteen and my dad’s the sheriff and it’s only a few months, eventually everyone hashed out that we’d all live together like some sort of crazy pre-college experience, my dad will keep an eye on us, and all the parents chipped in for some of the cost of housing, et cetera.”

Veronica blinks. That actually all sounds pretty reasonable. “So eight of you moved out here with just your father? And he agreed to let you live in the same house as your girlfriend?”

Stiles rubs his hand over the back of his head and says, “My dad is one of those ‘teenaged boys are going to do what teenaged boys are going to do’ guys. You know. If he’s willing to talk to me about stuff like that, I’ll actually go to him with problems so he knows I won’t get her pregnant or . . . and Scott’s girlfriend came with us, too, although my dad had to make _very_ strong promises about how the girls and guys would have separate rooms.”

“Which of course we do,” Erica says, despite the fact that they all sleep in a pile at least three times a week regardless of what rooms their beds and clothes are in.

“Right, so,” Veronica says, filing all this away. “Let’s see. What makes a good newspaper article? Uh, career aspirations?”

Scott tentatively half-raises his hand. “Veterinarian.”

“I’m going into law enforcement like my dad,” Stiles says. “Don’t let my good looks fool you. I can do cop face.” He gives Veronica an approximation of his father’s steely glare.

“Do let my good looks fool you!” Erica says, with a hair flip. “Modeling.” She knows that when she says that, most people assume it’s just wishful thinking on her part. She doesn’t care, or feel the need to convince them that she already has her father and Derek’s lawyer reviewing contracts for her.

Veronica notes all this down. “Okay, uh . . . I guess you haven’t been here long enough for me to ask ‘what’s your favorite thing about Neptune’. How about ‘what will you miss most about Beacon Hills?”

Stiles opens his mouth. Scott elbows him and promptly says, “The lacrosse team. I know I can join here, but I’ve played on that team my entire high school career, and I was co-captain, so it’s going to be weird starting over here.”

Erica starts to agree with Scott about how she’s going to miss the lacrosse team, albeit for an entirely different reason. (At least three of them are pretty good in bed, and two more are mediocre.) Then she remembers that she’s supposedly dating Stiles and she probably shouldn’t say things like ‘I’m going to miss screwing the lacrosse team’. They’ll have to have a discussion about that.

“I’m going to miss, uh, I guess it’s weird moving to such a big place after growing up in a small town,” Stiles says. “I’m going to miss knowing where to go to get anything I need, that kind of thing. Not much else. I brought everything and everyone I care about with me.”

Veronica tries not to gag. “Okay. Uh, favorite quote or expression?”

“Do you know – ” Erica starts, before both Scott and Stiles slap a hand over her mouth.

“If you’re going through Hell, keep going,” Stiles says.

Erica sulks behind their hands. Then licks them.

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” Scott quotes.

Veronica laughs and jots these down. “Erica, you want to give it another try? I don’t want to see any abuse going on here,” she threatens, waving her pencil in Stiles’ face.

“Hah! She could beat the shit out of me if she put even a quarter of her mind to it,” Stiles says.

Erica looks smug. Scott just rolls his eyes and says, “Try for something Veronica could publish?”

She gives him a look. “Seize the day!”

Stiles cracks up. “Dude, you’re sick!”

Veronica arches her eyebrows. “I’m missing an in-joke,” she says. “I know the vibe.”

Erica holds up her wrist so the medic-alert that her parents _still_ insist she wears gives a little rattle. “I’m epileptic,” she says. Stiles is still chortling. Scott just shakes his head, but he’s got those crinkles around his eyes that means he thinks it’s funny. If you can’t make fun of your own illnesses, what can you make fun of?

Veronica laughs, too. “Nice,” she says. “I won’t put that in the paper, though.” She sees Erica blink at her and says, “Some people here . . . are jerks. And they might . . . uh, say things or shine lights in your eyes or just behave like general jackasses because in addition to being jerks, they are also stupid, and so they wouldn’t know how to trigger an epileptic seizure, but . . .”

“But they would try, and then I’d have to kick their nuts up into their throats?” Erica asks.

Scott is just staring at Veronica, clearly appalled. “There are people here that bad?” Sure, there are jerks in Beacon Hills, kids that would laugh or a few assholes who would think it was fun to film a seizure, but he didn’t think anyone would stoop to purposefully trying to cause one.

“Uh, yeah, but you didn’t hear it from me,” Veronica says.

Stiles fidgets, but then smiles at Erica and says, “Well, we’ll watch your back, babe. But thanks for keeping that on the down low for us. Hey, if you want, I can introduce you to the rest of the pa – the rest of the kids who came down here with us during lunch. You know, so you can get your quotes and stuff.”

“Weren’t you going to take your dad lunch?” Erica asks.

Stiles frowns. “Shit. Yeah. He had pizza last night, which means he’s on a strict celery-and-wheat-germ diet until he confesses how many pieces he ate.”

“He’s gonna beat you to death with a package of frozen turkey bacon,” Scott informs him.

Veronica concentrates on pretending she has never met the sheriff and has no idea where this illicit pizza came from. Then she says, “Wait, you bring him lunch? That . . . that’s so cute. I used to do that for my dad when he was the sheriff sometimes.”

Stiles’ eyes go wide. “Oh, shit,” he says. “You’re _Veronica_ _Mars_ , arg, why did I not realize that?”

“Because this is your first day and nobody’s warned you away from me yet?” she guesses.

Erica laughs. “Okay, save poor Papa Stilinski some wheat germ, because I don’t even know what that shit is, and tell Stiles how many pieces of pizza he ate.”

“Oh no,” Veronica says, “I am _not_ getting in the middle of that one.”

Stiles makes a face. “Fine. I guess I don’t really have time to get all the way down to the sheriff’s station on my lunch break anyway. It’s probably too far. Also, everyone this morning was like ‘hey, nice ride’, what assholes. It’s a Jeep. What’s wrong with a Jeep?”

“It’s not shiny and new and expensive enough to pay for a year of college?” Veronica shrugs. “Unless it is new. I wouldn’t know.”

Stiles rubs both hands through his hair and says to Scott, “If Boyd gets through a month without breaking one of these snobs in half, it will be a miracle.”

“And Isaac’s gonna help,” Scott agrees glumly.

Erica lets out a snort. “Are you two gonna sell popcorn or hold people’s arms?”

“I did promise my dad I would _try_ not to get into any trouble, so . . . popcorn,” Stiles says.

Veronica’s amused, but finds herself vaguely concerned. She actually likes Stiles and his friends, so she says, “Guys, I don’t want to rain on your parade, but Neptune’s not really a great place to make enemies. I mean . . . these are the people who actually burned down the community poolhouse over the summer, basically just for shits and giggles. They have the money to get out of anything, and . . .”

“The local law wasn’t willing to push things?” Stiles presumes, and Veronica rather reluctantly nods. “And you think if my dad pushes things, he’ll be run out of town. But see, that’s the beauty of this. That’s okay. He’s going to try to do the job they hired him to do. If they don’t like it? Fine! We’ll just go back to Beacon Hills.”

“And inhale asbestos?” Veronica says.

Stiles shrugs. “We’ll just transfer to a different school. We’d work it out. We’ve had our fair share of dealings with assholes. I’m not saying I’m going to go looking for trouble. Just that I won’t back down if it comes looking for me.”

This set of statements seems completely at odds with the easy-going, friendly, spiky-haired boy she’s getting to know. But then again, Veronica supposes that’s fair. People wouldn’t expect her sort of attitude when they see a tiny, cute blonde girl. “You know what? I think we’re going to be great friends.”

“Everyone says that about me!” Stiles says, with a wide grin. “Which probably explains why I have so many enemies. But no more pizza for my dad. Seriously.”

Veronica laughs and agrees. They chat for a little while longer before study hall is over and she has to go to her next class. There are a couple new faces there, but she’s far too busy taking notes on world history to really take much note of them. It’s not until lunch that she’s introduced. She spots Stiles in the lunch line and follows him out to the table.

The newcomers, she finds, are a study in contradictions. First there’s Danny, the only guy she’s ever met who manages to be both a jock with biceps to die for and a complete computer nerd. She makes a mental note to introduce him to Mac. He also pings her gaydar, which is a dangerous thing to do in Neptune, but he doesn’t mention it and neither does she.

Then there’s Boyd, who looks like a typical urban black dude – Veronica winces at her own internal stereotyping and thinks that Wallace would kick her ass for that – but he’s soft-spoken and level-headed and wants to be an elementary school teacher. His favorite quote is something beautiful about stained glass windows and light from within. Allison is charming and bubbly but not at all airheaded. She cuddles with Scott incessantly but her hobby is archery – maybe even profession, she says – and she’s obviously very intelligent.

Isaac is quiet and shy and hard to get a bead on. He mentions that he’s thinking about going into landscaping but mostly just studies his hands and eats his sandwich. It’s Lydia who’s the real surprise. With looks and fashion sense that would give any 09er girl a run for their money, she’s already got a fan club. Even Madison Sinclair has complimented her shoes – and sincerely, too, without any mocking at all. Veronica is at a complete loss as to how Lydia can possibly be friends with this group of people until she asks about career aspirations and Lydia informs her matter-of-factly that she’s still trying to decide between being an astrophysicist and a particle physicist, although she supposes she should wait until she’s finished some of her college courses before making a final decision about it. Her favorite quote is from Einstein: “Only two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity. And I’m not sure about the universe.”

All in all, Veronica thinks, this might just be the weirdest group of people she’s ever met.

Which, of course, is when things get weirder.

As it turns out, her last class of the day is one that Stiles and Erica are going to be sharing, so she’s chatting with them as they leave the school. She’s finding herself glad that none of them are going to be competing for the Kane scholarship. Stiles’ GPA is pretty close to hers, and Lydia is actually ahead of her by a fraction of a point. “And this without the benefit of fancy tutors,” she says, and both of them give her a funny look.

As they reach the parking lot, she spots one more fancy car among the huge rows of them. This one looks particularly well cared for. It’s a black Camaro, and every inch of it is gleaming. Leaning against the hood is a young man who’s just as attractive, although a bit on the scruffy side for her taste. He’s wearing mirrored shades and a black V-neck.

Girls have flocked around this newcomer. One of them is in fact exclaiming over his biceps. Veronica’s amused at first, but as they get closer, she can read the discomfort in his body language. It’s subtle; most people wouldn’t notice. A tenseness in the set of his shoulders and jaw, a bit of an edge to the smile he’s trying to keep friendly.

“Hey, Derek!” Stiles suddenly shouts, and bounds away from the threesome to literally leap onto the newcomer. He throws his arms around him in a hug, and the girls scatter like startled birds. Veronica sees Derek’s arms go around Stiles’ waist and give him an obvious squeeze. She raises her eyebrows somewhat, but keeps walking with Erica towards the Camaro, since she hasn’t been told she’s not welcome.

“Truth?” Erica says, somewhat suddenly. “Stiles isn’t my boyfriend. I think he only said that because I kissed him, and he didn’t want everyone here thinking I was some slut before I’d had a chance to prove it for myself.” Her grin is somewhat devilish, but it softens a little as she gestures to Stiles and Derek and says, “That? That is the truth.”

Derek pulls Stiles in for a tight hug, and when Stiles makes no immediate move to let go, he says, “You’re on me again. What have I said about that?” He sees the girls eyeing him. “Never mind. It was all a vicious lie.”

“I knew I’d prevail eventually,” Stiles says, grinning and letting go. “What’s up? You were pining for me? Oh, hey,” he says, before Derek is forced to respond, “this is Veronica. I made an actual friend today. I think. If I understand the concept correctly.”

“You do,” Veronica says, smiling and extending her hand to Derek.

Derek reaches out and shakes her hand. “Derek.” This is clearly his idea of introducing himself. He tilts his head to Stiles and says, “Only until the sharks stop circling. Don’t get cocky.”

Erica grins and moves in to claim her own hug, for which she stands on her toes so they’re cheek to cheek, but it’s clearly not as personal a hug as the one Stiles got. “Aw. They’re only circling because they don’t know you yet.”

Stiles lets out a snort of laughter, pressing himself against Derek’s side. “So, seriously though, you came to pick me up? You remember that I drove here, right? Though I need to go to the grocery, now that I know where one actually is.”

“You mean one that sells real food? Not forty dollar steak and tofu?” Derek gives a one-armed shrug, his other arm wrapped around Stiles’ waist. “You said there were things you wanted for the house.”

“Yeah,” Stiles says. For Veronica’s benefit, he adds, “This all happened on kind of short notice. So we sort of wound up in a ‘take only what you need to survive’ packing mode, and I realized once I got here that I didn’t pack _half_ of what I need to survive, let alone keep everyone else – ”

“Hey, fags!” a voice yells from across the parking lot. “Get a room, cocksuckers!”

Without missing a beat, Stiles looks up at Derek and says, “Danny’s gonna _love_ this city.”

“Oh, Christ,” Derek says, rolling his eyes. Erica’s grin goes positively feral and she starts to head towards the voice. Derek snags her by the back of the shirt. “Nope.”

“You never let me have any fun,” Erica says, pouting.

“That’s right,” Stiles says peaceably. He shakes his head and says to Veronica, “Lots of open-minded folks around here, I take it.”

“Oh, absolutely,” Veronica says. She holds up her hands and starts counting off on her fingers. “Unless you’re . . . gay, poor, Hispanic, handicapped in most fashions, counter culture of any sort, named Mars, a girl with the sexual morals of a guy . . . I’m going to start running out of fingers soon, so . . .”

“Lydia should be fine,” Derek says. Then he looks at Erica. “You’re fucked.”

“Did you just make a joke?” Erica blinks at him. “Stiles! He made a joke!”

“That was less of a joke and more of a double entendre,” Stiles says, but shrugs. “I’m proud of you anyway. Hey, so, I wanna go check in on my dad, because duh, of course I do,” he says. To Veronica, he continues, “You know what I’m thinking? Party at my place Friday night. Bring the few people in this place that you think are worth knowing. I can expand my social circle. Cool?”

“Cool,” Veronica says. “Tell Inga and Leo I said hi. Don’t mention me to anybody else. They’re all afraid of me,” she says, in a mock confidential tone.

“I’ll wait for the others,” Erica says.

Stiles fishes the keys to the Jeep out of his pocket and says, “Have somebody competent drive my baby back to the house.”

She takes them and sighs. “Does Scott count?”

“Only if Allison’s in a different car.”

“Got it.”

 

~ ~ ~ ~


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I ran out of room to mention this in chapter one's author's notes, but to all of you lovely people who *are* familiar with Veronica Mars, I'd like to ask you to keep the comments a VM spoiler free zone. I know the temptation to speculate will be great when certain characters appear in the narrative, but try to keep it vague. ^_^

 

Sheriff Stilinski works late his second day, surprising absolutely nobody. It irritates Stiles, though, who is prone to fretting about the amount of stress his father is under even on a good day. He’s doubly irritated because he went shopping and found real food and made western-style pork chops for dinner. His dad loves western-style pork chops, but calls around five thirty to say he’s working through a backlog of car theft cases and not to expect him until around eight.

Stiles sulks, but only for a little while. He’s done his homework, and the pool beckons. He has a house with a _pool_. It demands attention. He goes out back with the others and they splash around for a bit and play Marco Polo, a game which is infinitely more difficult when challenged with werewolf super-hearing. Then he lounges on the edge and calls back to Beacon Hills to chat with Jake. The younger teenager had been bummed about not being able to go with them, but Chris had insisted that Stiles give Jake time to get his feet underneath himself in a healthy home environment before pushing the invitation to the pack. That seemed reasonable to Stiles, all things considered. So Jake was allowed to hang out with the pack on occasion, but a semester in Neptune wasn’t in the cards.

He gets out of the pool around seven thirty and goes back inside, toweling himself off and wandering into the kitchen in his swim trunks to reheat the leftovers. The pork chops come with mashed potatoes (a much-maligned food that often gets lumped into the fattening ‘white food’ category, in Stiles’ opinion) and green beans. He’s just putting a plate together when his father comes in.

“Smells good,” he says.

“It smelled better at six,” Stiles replies.

“It smells good now, Stiles, and I’m starving,” Stilinski says in response. “And let me tell you how much more enjoyable I would have found your company at six than the company I did have.”

Stiles sets down the plate and a glass of water and fidgets. “You know, there are several studies that link stress and heart disease. You shouldn’t work so hard. It’s not – ”

“Son, sit down and tell me about your day before you stress _yourself_ into a heart attack. My day was just annoying. I want to hear about yours.” He picks up a fork and starts eating.

“Yeah, okay.” Stiles roots around in the refrigerator and, after some inner debate, pulls out some vegetables. He gets a cutting board and a knife so he’ll have something to do while he talks; otherwise, he’ll get too fidgety. He’s often like this at the end of the day, when the Adderall is wearing off. It’s one of the reasons he always does his homework right after school, rather than putting it off like so many teenagers. “This school is absolutely nuts. They have a school television station. And a TV in each classroom.”

“I’ve heard of some schools having a radio station, but even then that’s usually colleges.” He stabs at some of the green beans and eats them to make Stiles happy.

Stiles starts peeling carrots. “Yeah, and the classes aren’t like . . . real classes. Why am I taking a health class? What am I, twelve? I know how babies are made.”

“I’m more concerned about you knowing how _not_ to make them,” Stilinski says, pointing at Stiles with his fork. “But since I’m not knee deep in werewolf cubs, I’ll assume you and Erica picked up on that lesson. Please tell me that they’re not all cop-out classes.”

“No, I mean, I’ve got calculus and lit and stuff, _I’m_ in normal classes, but some of the classes _offered_ are just weird. Like there are actual business classes, and there’s a drama _class_ , not just a drama _club_ , and you can choose between your gym classes, like you can do ‘soft impact’ where it’s yoga and badminton or you can do ‘high impact’ where they play, you know, actual sports.”

“I like how they call it ‘soft impact’, not ‘low impact’. What do you do for your extra curriculars, then?” Stilinski asks, between bites of food. The fact that it might have smelled better at six doesn’t seem to bother him very much.

“Make a television show, I guess?” Stiles says, and shrugs. “There are sports teams like any high school, but there isn’t just a school band, there’s a school orchestra and a ‘jazz ensemble’. Veronica’s part of the school newspaper, she says that they cover _actual_ stories, like one time she drove down to San Diego to photograph some parade or something.”

“Oh, so you’ve met Veronica,” Stilinski says, his mouth full of potatoes. “What did you think of her?”

“She’s sneaky!” Stiles says. “She didn’t tell me that she knew exactly who I was as soon as she heard my last name. I didn’t figure it out until about ten minutes later. So, yeah, definitely sneaky. I like her!”

“You would.” Stilinski narrows his eyes at his son. “You made friends with her, didn’t you.”

Stiles laughs and gets up to rinse off the peeled carrots. “You say that like it’s a bad thing that I made a friend.”

“With the one girl in town that could actually figure out that we need to use a shop vac because of all the dog hair. Even though we don’t own a single dog.”

“It’s not like I’m going to invite her over to watch me vacuum,” Stiles says, and then continues with exaggerated patience, “I invited her over for a _pool party_.”

“Stiles, go get me a beer.”

Stiles droops. “Yes, sir.” He goes into the fridge and pulls out a bottle, setting it on the table next to his father. Then he starts chopping the carrots with vigor. “Uh, so, Friday night, I’m going to have some people over. If, uh, if that’s okay with you?” He gives his father a hopeful look.

“I hate it when you wilt and give me that look,” Stilinski says, opening the bottle. “Yes, have your party. Enjoy yourself. Feed them something besides carrot sticks.”

“I think I’ll have to!” Stiles says, gesticulating with the paring knife. “They have this system called ‘pirate points’, which you get for participating in student government or sports and stuff like that, and you can use them to do stuff like have food delivered to you at school. The table next to us actually had Chinese food. Brought to them. During school lunch.”

“Good God,” Stilinski says. “It’s a high school culture based on leaving you with nothing to look forward to in college. Everyone will already be used to taking ‘rocks for jocks’ and the joy of ordering and eating whatever the hell they want without any parental supervision.”

“Yeah, they won’t even have the booze and wild parties to look forward to, because as far as I can tell, that’s the prevailing form of entertainment with these people.”

“Do you think it’s something they put in the water here?” Stilinski eyes his glass suspiciously before ignoring it to take another bite of his pork chop. “But back to an earlier topic: you of all people are not going to be defeated by people’s culinary expectations.”

“Oh, I know,” Stiles says, amused. “I’m not doing any of the sort of stuff that will earn me pirate points, though, since I decided not to try out for lacrosse down here. So I guess I’ll have to aim to impress people down here in other ways.”

“Should I be afraid?” Stilinski asks. He doesn’t sound afraid at all.

Stiles just laughs. He’s already decided not to mention the homophobic heckling. Given that he’s not actually gay, he thinks it’s funny more than anything else. If it starts to bother Danny, though, all bets are off. That’s something he’ll deal with at a later time, as needed. He’s well aware that his relationship with Derek is nontraditional and prone to misinterpretation. Frankly, he doesn’t care what people think of him. But his father can get oversensitive about strange things, being a father, so he just won’t mention it. “Maybe I’ll try out for the cheerleading squad! That would impress people.”

His father lets out a snort. “Just as long as you promise to wear that man’s uniform. Your legs are too pale to look good in a skirt.”

“Well, hey, I’m in the right place to work on that,” Stiles says. “Erica’s been spending so much time in the sun that people might start to realize she’s Hispanic.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it. As for you – ” Stiles is treated to another stern fork point – “you will not tan. You’ll just end up with more freckles and moles.”

Stiles’ hand goes automatically, self-consciously, to one of the moles on his face. “Not cool, Dad.”

“Oh, for the love of . . .” Stilinski puts his fork down and pulls Stiles’ hand away from his face. “One: we went through all of this when you were younger and I thought you were over it. Two: I’ve seen Erica kiss that mark often enough to know that girls your own age don’t find it unattractive. Three: you got that fair skin from your mother.”

“Yeah, but . . .” Stiles makes a face at him. “It’s just not easy being the wimpy-looking, average kid surrounded by hot werewolves all the time. How does the bite even _do_ that, I dunno. Just try not to step on my pride, okay?”

Stilinski holds his hands up in surrender. But then he asks a question when he puts them down. “Does Lydia look different to you?”

“Well, no, but you can’t increase the attractiveness of someone who’s already infinitely attractive. It’s like trying to divide by zero.” Stiles waves a carrot in his father’s direction and says, “Don’t make me use math!”

“The dreaded _math_ ,” Stilinski says, laughing. “I fear the carrots more. My point is that it doesn’t actually change their appearance. You see a difference in Isaac because his injuries healed and he’s being treated better. You see a difference in Scott and Erica because they’re healthy now. But there’s no difference in Lydia, no difference in Danny. Most of the change you’re seeing is how they carry themselves. Confidence is attractive, Stiles. And you gave them that. Besides, don’t sell yourself short. I’ve noticed a change in you, too.” He reaches out and snatches the carrot. “Give me that before it appears in my lunch.”

“Daaaaad, I’m going to make pasta salad, give that back,” Stiles says, reaching for it. He blinks. “Wait, what? Really? I mean, have I changed the same way?”

“Promise it won’t appear as ‘alternative fries’?” Stilinski asks, and at Stiles’ nod, he reluctantly hands it over. “And yes. Absolutely.”

“Yeah, well . . . you’re my dad, so you’re required to say that anyway.” Stiles starts slicing the carrot into small pieces. “So I’m either stuck with moles or skinny white legs. Which is all your fault because you should have made sure I got the genes for your skin.”

“You’re right. I’m deeply sorry.”

Stiles gives a nod, to indicate that this is as it should be, and now all is well. “It’s bad enough I have to wear that bullshit concealer on my arms without getting self-conscious enough to put it on my moles.”

Stilinski sighs. He hates that his son has to do that. Hates that he has the scars at all, as well as hating that he has to cover them up. He knows that part of the reality is to hide the supernatural world from the mundane, but part of it is because he knows the conclusions people will draw, especially about the marks on his arms. He doesn’t want people thinking his son is a head case. And that isn’t fair, either. Even if he _had_ done that to himself, God knew that he wouldn’t have wanted Stiles to feel ashamed. At least at home in Beacon Hills, everyone was aware enough on some level that Stiles doesn’t have to hide that sort of thing. “You could cover them with tattoos,” he says, with a shrug, not even sure where the idea had come from. “If you wanted.”

“Oh, yeah,” Stiles says, amused. “That would help me keep a low profile.”

“I care far more about you being happy than about the height of your profile.”

“Thanks, Dad.” Stiles glances up and gives him a genuine smile. “But I’m okay. Really. It’s only for a few months, and then we’ll be back on familiar territory. Just like on Cheers. Where everybody knows my name. And my scars. And my moles.”

“Okay,” Stilinski says, returning the smile. “You can change your mind if you want, though. I’ll back you up however you want to do this.”

Stiles gives a snicker. “Oh, you’re going to regret those words, Dad.”

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

If curiosity is fatal to cats, Veronica thinks as she taps away at her laptop, it’s just as fatal but unfortunately crucial to private investigators and nosy teenaged girls. She can’t help but get a weird vibe from Stiles and his friends. She _likes_ them – but they’re weird. No question about that. And what’s the harm in a little research? It’s not an invasion of privacy if it’s all public record, right?

She’s immediately surprised by how many links come up when she Googles ‘sheriff Tom Stilinski’. Her father had mentioned to her at one point that the new sheriff had had ‘an interesting career’ but she hadn’t really thought about it. But he even has his own Wikipedia page. Of course, so does Keith Mars.

Better yet, a few months previous, a journalist had done a piece about him for some local magazine. Veronica settles in to read it. The small-town cop turned small-county sheriff. Widowed ten years previous and never remarried, one son with a name that Veronica can’t pronounce. She can see why he goes by ‘Stiles’. But it’s in the last few years that the story really gets interesting. First off is the incident two winters previous where the sheriff had witnessed a murder in the forest and the murderer had run him off the road in his car in an attempt to keep him quiet. The sheriff had wound up in the hospital, basically comatose and certainly in no kind of shape to help track down the man who had put him there.

Enter the strangely named son, who from the article, had done all the detective work in getting the murderer put behind bars. Gerard Argent. Veronica blinks at the screen and then shuffles through her notes. Yep, there it is, Argent. The friendly, vivacious brunette with the cute boyfriend. Veronica wonders about her relationship to the murderer, but the article immediately makes it clear when it talks about how Stiles found his father’s phone by chance at a friend’s house and went on to put the pieces of the assault together. Rather than betraying his hand, he had gone about building a solid, airtight case that included a taped confession. Even Veronica finds the level of work impressive.

And then everything quiets down for several months until over the summer, there’s a shoot-out in the woods. Veronica remembers hearing about it on the news. There’s Allison again, as the object of the stalker’s ardor, and Stiles again, as one of the victims. He didn’t get a lot of press that time, though; it mainly goes to Allison and Lydia. A couple more familiar names, Isaac and Erica. But that’s not really surprising, Veronica supposes. They’re friends; they hang out together. Those men are behind bars as well, and likely to be there for quite some time.

The big story of the next year is when a lawsuit is filed against Sheriff Stilinski and his entire department for ignoring a complaint. Now Derek’s name pops up for the first time as someone who allegedly threatened a teacher who had been harassing Stiles. Veronica reads a quote from the teacher and involuntarily wrinkles her nose. He sounds like a grade-A douchebag, and she can’t blame Derek for threatening him one bit. She can’t help but wonder what happened to the service dog at the center of it all, though. So far, she’s seen no evidence that Stiles has one or needs one. She supposes that it was almost a year ago now. He could have decided he didn’t want to risk the same thing happening at a new school.

The lawsuit is eventually dropped, the teacher makes a huge public apology, and Stilinski runs unopposed and is re-elected without incident. Veronica wonders if the people in Beacon Hills were pissed off about losing him to Neptune, even if it’s only for a few months.

The Wikipedia page has basically the same information, with more detail in sections. The Beacon Hills shooting has its own page. A quick read-through of it has her respect for them going up a notch. It’s the kind of situation that it would be easy to lose your head during.

In the list of sources, she finds an interesting link entitled ‘The Secrets of Beacon Hills’, and clicks on it for shits and giggles. The phone in the office hasn’t rung in an hour, so the alternative is doing her homework for health class.

“Why do strange things always seem to happen in Beacon Hills?” the page asks in bold letters at the top. Veronica presumes it’s a rhetorical question and keeps reading. The answer, she soon finds, is that Beacon Hills is home to a werewolf infestation.

“Of course it is!” she says, laughing. “That would explain everything!”

It all started with the Hale family, the page informs her, and the fire that killed them all. Veronica pauses here to do a little independent confirmation and finds an article that talks about the Hale House fire and the three survivors. She thinks of Derek standing stiff and uncomfortable with his Camaro in the parking lot and feels a well of sympathy for him. She can’t even imagine what that must be like.

With the Hale family mostly dead and the survivors scattered, everything became quiet in Beacon Hills. But as soon as Derek and Laura returned, weird things started happening again. Veronica can’t see how that would be Laura’s fault, as the article explains that she was murdered pretty much as soon as she got back. “Jesus,” Veronica says, skimming through the gruesome particulars of the series of murders that had plagued Beacon Hills. They had stopped in December, with the murder of Kate Argent and the disappearance of Peter Hale.

Which of course makes sense, according to the article. Kate Argent was responsible for the Hale house fire because she comes from a family of werewolf hunters.

“Really?” Veronica says to the website. “Because their last name means ‘silver’? Did you come up with that all on your own, or did you have a team of monkeys put it together for you?”

Peter Hale had systematically hunted down those who killed his family, and, revenge completed, had vanished. His whereabouts had never been accounted for. A little more independent research verifies his disappearance, but blames the murders on Kate Argent, which Veronica finds interesting. She also finds it interesting that right after Peter’s disappearance was when Sheriff Stilinski was nearly killed . . . by an Argent.

Although she can’t help but find ‘werewolves’ a little dubious, she has to admit that she _does_ find this nebulous connection interesting. Could it be coincidence that an Argent tried to kill Sheriff Stilinski right after his son had made friends with the last surviving Hale? What _had_ happened to the mysterious Peter Hale, who had spent almost six years as a catatonic cripple in a long-term care facility before suddenly disappearing? Werewolves aside, was there some sort of vendetta between the Hale and the Argent family that the Stilinskis had just gotten mixed up in?

“Whatcha readin’?” Keith Mars asks, leaning over her shoulder as he comes out of his office.

She glances up smiles at him. “I’m reading about how the new sheriff’s son is a werewolf.”

“Man,” Keith says, “why can’t people spread fun rumors like that about us? With us it’s always incompetence or witch-hunts, never werewolves.”

Veronica giggles despite herself. “Yeah, we clearly need to work harder on our image,” she agrees. She closes the webpage, because in the end, she supposes it doesn’t matter. She likes Stiles and his friends. And whatever happened to Peter Hale and Kate Argent, it was years ago. She can’t imagine it would matter now.

She’s so preoccupied with werewolves and blood feuds and fun rumors that it doesn’t even occur to her that in all her research, she never saw one word about the high school closing because of asbestos.

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

“So, when do I get to meet your service dog?” Veronica asks Stiles brightly as she runs into him in the cafeteria the next day. He nearly drops his tray full of food.

“Holy crap,” he says. “Everything I’ve heard about you really is true.”

Veronica laughs. “Aw, come on, what’s a little Googling between friends?”

Stiles lets out a snort. “Well, you’ll meet Jack when you come over Friday night, I guess, presuming that you’re still planning on coming and you weren’t scared away by whatever Google has revealed about me.”

“Definitely not scared,” Veronica says. “Actually, kind of impressed, if you want the truth.”

Stiles rubs a hand over his head and heads for the vending machines. “I can’t even imagine what you were reading on the internet about me that would have impressed you. My measurements aren’t on there, are they?”

Veronica gives him a look. Then she laughs despite herself. “Actually, I was reading about what happened when Gerard Argent tried to kill your father and you pretty much single-handedly solved the case and brought him to justice.”

“Whoa, whoa,” Stiles says, setting his tray down on a nearby table. “If you read the article by that flake Jenny something-or-other, that was _way_ too hyperbolic. There was absolutely _no_ single-handed anything. Allison’s the one who helped me get Gerard’s credit card info and Danny did all the computer work. Scott and Derek took turns helping me stake out my dad’s hospital room to catch them poisoning him and Scott’s mother helped me run all the blood tests. There’s no way I could have done _any_ of it without my friends, and it was a _complete_ chance that I found my dad’s phone in Allison’s basement. It’s not like I solved the murder of Lilly Kane or anything.”

Veronica narrows her eyes at him.

“What’s a little Googling between friends?” he asks innocently.

Veronica huffs out a sigh. “Stiles one, Veronica zero,” she says. “But there was just as much chance involved there. I found the camera at the Echolls’ house by accident and I still thought Logan was guilty when _Duncan_ found the tapes and we saw who was on them.”

“Maybe all detective work has an element of luck to it,” Stiles agrees. “Nothing wrong with that.”

“Maybe so,” Veronica says. “At least you got a taped confession instead of getting carjacked and having to be rescued.”

Stiles raises his hands in surrender. “Come on, you had no idea Aaron Echolls knew you were on to him. He ambushed you. I ambushed Gerard. Of course I came out on top there. Anyway, dude totally would’ve killed me if Allison’s dad hadn’t stepped in.”

“The internet also says you’re a werewolf,” Veronica says brightly, wanting to change the subject.

Stiles laughs, lifts his chin, and says, “A-roooo!”

Veronica laughs, too. “I knew it. You’re a creature of the night.”

“You were at that ‘Mysteries of Beacon Hills’ site or whatever, right?” he says. “About the decade long grudge between the Hale family and the Argent family? Yeah . . . bring that up when Derek and Allison are in the same room. They’ll get a kick out of it.”

“Okay,” she says, “but it bothered me. I mean, what _did_ happen to Peter Hale?”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Stiles says. “He’s probably sitting on a beach somewhere, sipping a pina colada and taking joy in the fact that the woman who murdered his family is dead.” He glances over at Veronica and says, “Yeah, there are some grains of truth on that site. Kate Argent _did_ set the Hale house on fire, and Peter Hale _did_ kill her because of it. Hell, maybe she even did it because she thought they were werewolves. Bitch was crazy.”

“Still. Seems pretty coincidental that then her father tried to kill some guy and your dad just happened to witness it,” Veronica says.

Stiles folds his arms over his chest. “Oh, yeah? More coincidental than that you wound up dating Logan Echolls and then his dad turned out to be the murderer even though _nobody_ had suspected him up to that point, including you?”

Veronica blinks at him for a minute, then says, “Stiles two, Veronica still at zero. Look, I’m sorry. I just like mysteries. I’m prying, and that kind of makes me a bitch.”

“Don’t get me wrong,” Stiles says, “I’m still really impressed by what you and your dad did. Because you _didn’t_ have support. Not the way I did. My friends were there with me _every_ step of the way, and there’s no way I could’ve done it without them. Even if Derek did lecture me on the stupid risks I was taking at pretty much every opportunity.”

“Were you two dating back then?” Veronica asks, glad to get on a less treacherous subject.

“No,” Stiles says. “But . . . looking back on it, that’s when we really . . . _connected_. We’d known each other before then, he was kind of a friend of Scott’s, but . . . when my dad was in the hospital, Derek was really there for me. He understood what I was going through better than anyone, and he knew when I needed to talk about it or when I needed to be distracted or when I just needed him to . . . to hold me for a while.” Stiles actually blushes a little and says, “Aaaaand I sound completely sappy right now.”

“It’s nice,” Veronica says. “Logan’s fond of saying that our love is ‘epic’. I think maybe yours and Derek’s is, too.”

“One for the songbooks,” Stiles agrees. “Anyway, he got all weird about it because of the age difference, and when my dad started to get better and all the fuss died down, he tried to back off a bit . . . but I didn’t let him.” Stiles grins. “It all worked out. Despite my dad’s numerous threats to arrest him for statutory.”

“My dad has a similar opinion of my boyfriends,” Veronica says, with a snort of laughter.

“Hey, that’s another thing we have in common!” Stiles says. “Boyfriends who were suspected of murder!”

“Wow,” Veronica says, still laughing. “Just, wow.”

“I think we’re soulmates,” Stiles says solemnly. “This is meant to be.”

“I’m glad you’re not pissed at me,” Veronica says. “I guess I’m still not good at trying to be a normal girl.”

“It must’ve been weird,” Stiles says. “I mean, being vindicated after having been ostracized for an entire year.”

“It was weird,” Veronica says. “Between that and dating Logan, a lot of people seemed to think I would just go back to being part of the in-crowd, but . . . it doesn’t work like that. That’s why my dad wouldn’t run for sheriff. Because he says he can’t just pretend it all never happened.”

“I don’t think I’d be able to, either,” Stiles says. He looks over at the two tables that the pack has spread themselves out over. “Want to join us?”

“Sure,” Veronica says, waving to where Logan and Wallace are kicking a hackey sack back and forth while they wait for her. “I’d like that.”

 

~ ~ ~ ~


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note to my non-Veronica-Mars-fans - this chapter introduces a lot of people, but 90% of them aren't really important. It's basically just a lot of banter and sass, so don't worry about keeping track of who they all are. Those who are important will show up again later. ^_^
> 
> .....teenagers do still have pool parties, right? God, I feel so old. I apologize in advance if teenagers don't act like this anymore. Pretend it's the 90s.
> 
> Vague warning for some homophobic hatespeech, but really that applies to this entire fic.
> 
> Much less vague warning for references to self-harm (even though none actually took place).

 

Sheriff Stilinski has no problem with Stiles hosting a party, because given everything that had happened over the past few years, a high school party seemed positively tame. “Just don’t get to the point where the neighbors are calling the cops,” he says. “That would be embarrassing.” He has somewhere else to be. Woody Goodman, the county supervisor and unofficial ‘mayor’ of Neptune, has invited him over to dinner. Stilinski met him a few times while obtaining the position of sheriff, described him as snake-oily, and isn’t looking forward to it.

Stiles has made sure there’s plenty of soda and chips and dip, loud music on the stereo, and the pool has been adjusted to a reasonable temperature. This is exciting for him. His first real party. “Gepetto, I’m becoming a real boy!” he says, and Derek just huffs and rolls his canine eyes. He’s insisted on wearing the vest, so people won’t try to touch him. The doorbell rings and Stiles jogs down the stairs to answer it.

When he pulls it open, he’s greeted by Veronica, with her usual smile that’s friendly but has just a hint of snark to it, and a few others. One is the tall guy she hangs out with a lot during school hours. They kiss sometimes and argue a lot, so Stiles presumes he’s the boyfriend, Logan. There’s also an African-American boy of medium height and puffy hair, and a smiling brunette girl with blue streaks in her hair. “Hey, c’mon in,” Stiles says. “Welcome to Casa de Stilinski.”

Lydia comes up behind him in an outfit that is, for her, toned down. She looks like she stepped out of a fashion magazine rather than off a fashion runway. She’s wearing her prefect hostess smile, though the expression in her eyes seems genuinely pleased that they’re there. “Hi, guys, thanks for coming.”

“Wow, we merit a ‘thanks for coming’,” Logan says, with that smile that means he’s trying not to roll his eyes.

Veronica elbows him. “Hi, Stiles. This is Logan, my incorrigible boyfriend. And this is Wallace and Mac.”

“Cool,” Stiles says. “C’mon out back, we have chips and sodas and stuff.”

Lydia turns that smile onto Logan. “Well, some of you do, sweetie.” She turns and says, “This way,” but waits for Stiles before leading them through the house.

“I like her,” Logan says to Stiles. “She’s feisty.”

Veronica just rolls her eyes. Wallace says, “The thing you gotta remember about Logan is that you can ignore about ninety-five percent of what comes out of his mouth, ‘cause that’s just him being a jackass.”

“I will make a note of that,” Stiles says solemnly.

“He should get along beautifully with Danny, then,” Lydia says, thinking that this would be an excellent description of Jackson as well. She pushes open the glass door that leads out onto the back patio with one hand. Derek has claimed a low pool chair for himself and is sprawled across it.

“OhmyGod he’s _huge_!” Mac says, although she sounds more excited than scared.

“Yeah, that’s my dog, Jack,” Stiles says. “He’s friendly enough,” he adds, with a smirk in Derek’s direction. “You can pet him, he doesn’t mind.”

Mac walks over and kneels down beside the pool chair, extending a hand for Derek to sniff. Derek flicks an ear at Stiles, indicating that somebody may get head-butted into the pool later. Then he politely sniffs Mac’s fingers. She smells like nice soap and has a friendly smile, so he gives in and licks at the tips of her fingers, keeping his teeth hidden.

“I’m surprised you still like big dogs so much,” Veronica says. “Didn’t you get bit by a dog on your camping trip last summer?”

“Yeah,” Mac says, and shrugs. “So what? Just because some asshole can’t train their dog properly doesn’t mean I shouldn’t get over myself.”

“Drinks over there, chips and dip over there,” Stiles is saying, gesturing around, and the others are coming over to greet the guests. “There’s some fruit and shit, I don’t know, I kind of threw some stuff together. We can go swimming if you want. The pool’s heated.”

Logan looks at Veronica. “He’s so cute, I just wanna pinch his cheeks.”

“Pinch my cheeks and you’ll lose your fingers,” Stiles says, without missing a beat.

Lydia gives up, and Mac is busy scratching behind Derek’s ears. “I need some cookies,” she says. Seeing Wallace perk up, she gestures him over.

“Snickerdoodles?” he says. “Aw, _man_ , this party’s the best already! I’m totally down for swimming, by the way. Just because Logan’s place has a pool with pretty girls who fan him with palm fronds – ”

“Hey, now, stop objectifying me, Wallace,” Veronica says, laughing. “I’ll just be glad to go in a pool that I’m pretty sure nobody has peed in recently.” She gives a mock shudder. “Apartment complex pools: not for the faint of heart.”

“Are we expecting anyone else?” Allison asks, hefting over a cooler of sodas for everyone to take their pick.

“I invited a few more, yeah,” Veronica says. “Man, six people are the only ones worth knowing at my school. That’s pretty horrific.”

“Five and a half,” Mac says. “You can’t count Logan as a whole person.”

Logan just laughs this off.

“Don’t they use that funky chemical that turns guilty blue if someone pees?” Boyd asks as he walks over to snag a soda out of the cooler. “That’s what they do at the community pool back home. Will won’t swim if he thinks the water is too blue in general.”

“It’s a sad world we live in,” Stiles says, and then the doorbell rings again. “You guys hang, I’ll get it. You wanna come with, Veronica?” he asks, and she nods, figuring it would be good form to introduce them. She’s pretty sure he met Duncan once or twice already, but she’s the one who invited them. She follows Stiles back through the house. He swings the door open to reveal that it is indeed Duncan and Meg, both of whom give that friendly-but-awkward smile people give strangers at parties.

“Stiles, this is Duncan and his girlfriend Meg,” Veronica says. “Duncan’s a really good friend of mine,” she adds, which is happily true. “And Meg is absolutely the best person in Neptune.”

“Oh, shut up,” Megan says, blushing. They’d had their rough spots – Meg still has her moments where she gets jealous of Duncan and Veronica’s friendship – but once Duncan had found out that Meg was pregnant, all questions about their relationship had gone out the window. They were now just as goopy as ever. Not that Veronica’s mentioned the pregnancy to anyone else; that’s nobody’s business. Including hers.

“Nice to meet you, man,” Duncan says, shaking Stiles’ hand.

“So this is it!” Veronica says. “All five and a half people worth knowing at Neptune High.” She gives Duncan and Meg a sassy smile. “I’ve been informed that Logan only counts as half a person.”

“If that,” Meg says, with an amused snort of laughter that makes it clear she doesn’t really mean it.

“Aren’t Dick and Beaver coming?” Duncan asks.

Stiles blinks. “Okay, you cannot seriously know people named ‘Dick’ and ‘Beaver’.”

“Well,” Veronica says evenly, “they’re most likely coming, because Logan invited them, but I hadn’t counted them because I don’t know Beaver very well, and Dick isn’t worth knowing.” She turns to Stiles and adds, “Logan promised he didn’t mind if anyone nails Dick in the balls for being, well, Dick, so that’s okay.” Her look turns hopeful. “Right?”

“I absolutely cannot wait to meet this guy,” Stiles says. “You should’ve let me know you were providing entertainment!”

Duncan lets out a snort. “Well, they probably won’t show up for a while yet. Real parties don’t start until after ten in Dick’s world.”

“And they involve alcohol, but he won’t think far ahead enough to realize that we’re at the sheriff’s house,” Veronica adds, “which will just make it more amusing for us.”

“He’ll be toasted by the time he gets here anyway,” Duncan predicts.

Veronica just shakes her head. “Hey, where is your dad tonight?” she asks Stiles, as they start through the house. “Out bringing justice to the world?”

“He wishes,” Stiles says. “Instead he’s schmoozing. He got invited over to Woody Goodman’s. Seriously, does nobody here have a name worth having? Woody Goodman? That sounds like a child molester.”

Meg wrinkles her nose at that. “Oh, yick. Now I’m going to think about that every time I see Gia.”

“Sorry,” Stiles says, though he’s clearly not sorry at all. He waves for them to follow him back through the house.

Meg leans in near Stiles and says quietly, “Uh, the drinks _are_ nonalcoholic, right? Because I . . . don’t drink,” she adds hastily, one hand hovering over her abdomen.

Stiles gives her a casual glance that flicks up and down, and in that moment Veronica knows that Stiles has realized exactly why Meg doesn’t want alcohol. She waits to see what he’ll do with this information, but he just smiles and says, “Naw, it’s just sodas and shit. My dad probably _wouldn’t_ care if we had some alcohol as long as we all stayed here and made sure nobody drove home, but I try not to push my luck too hard.”

“Okay,” Meg says, relieved.

“So, think anything has caught fire while we were gone?” Veronica asks, as they near the back patio.

“Even Logan can’t cause that much trouble in so little time,” Duncan replies.

“Don’t say that where he can hear you,” Veronica says. “He’ll take it as a challenge.” Then they’re on the patio and she’s introducing Duncan and Meg to the others and trying to keep everyone straight. Not everyone is there; some of the others have gone to change into their bathing suits. They’re still exchanging small talk and she’s considering just sticking her face into the bowl of homemade guacamole when she hears Wallace let out a whistle as the three girls from Beacon Hills come back out of the house.

Lydia’s wearing a tasteful one-piece, black of course, with some highlights in warm colors and a cut that suits her. Allison has on a lavender bikini which covers her far more generously than the turquoise one that Erica is wearing. “Damn!” Wallace says. “I’m gonna like it here!”

Logan looks at Veronica and says, “I take it back. I like your new friends.”

Erica grins when she hears Wallace, while Veronica administers a smack to Logan’s upper arm. “Oh, I like him,” Erica says. “Can I keep him?”

Scott moves over to stand behind Allison without being asked, adjusting the length of the cord that holds her protection charm so it’s too short to slip off while she’s swimming while she holds her hair out of the way. He laughs at Erica. “Could we stop you?”

Veronica looks between Erica and Wallace, who seems oblivious to the fact that Erica’s considering climbing him like a tree. “Hey, we’ll go change too,” she says brightly, grabbing him by an arm.

“Ooh, I’ll go with you,” Meg says, shoving a cookie into her mouth.

Duncan blinks around like a deer abandoned by the herd. Mac looks up from where she’s been petting Derek and says, “Uh . . . where did everyone I know go? Not that you guys aren’t great, but . . .”

Amused, Stiles says. “They went to change. Are you going to swim?”

“Nah, I’m not much of a swimmer,” Mac admits.

“Then don’t worry about it. We’re friendly!” Stiles grins as she gives him a skeptical look.

Erica moves over to them and leans her chin on Stiles’ shoulder. “I actually suck at swimming. I’ve kinda got a dog paddle. But I’ve got a gold medal in hanging out at the edge, sitting on the stairs, dipping my feet in while I listen to my parents have heart failure.”

Mac laughs. “Why would your parents have heart failure over that? It sounds like the safest thing ever done at a pool.”

“I have epilepsy,” Erica says with a shrug. “In my parents’ defense, a pool is a really crappy place to have a seizure.” She doesn't mind talking about it. She doesn't want to hang a banner, but she really is a crappy swimmer and there are some things the bite just can't fix.

“Oh, I . . . know someone with epilepsy,” Duncan says. “It . . . it really sucks, doesn’t it.”

Erica glances over, noting his hesitation but not saying anything about it. “I know, right? You can be totally minding your own business and then suddenly you’re like ‘how did I get here and why did someone put the washing machine on spin’?”

“Hah, yeah,” Duncan says.

Logan glances up and says, “I’m sure the ‘person you know’ with epilepsy would be very comforted to find a kindred soul with whom he could talk these things over,” he says. “Perhaps it would even be good for him.”

Erica grins. “I’ve got stories. Hook us up,” she says, even though she’s pretty sure she’s looking at said epileptic right now. If Duncan doesn’t want to announce it in front of a bunch of almost-strangers, that’s his business.

Stiles emerges from the house, still wearing his T-shirt but now also in a pair of swim trunks with Hawaiian flowers on them, oblivious to how ridiculous he looks. He kneels down next to Derek and starts taking his vest off. “This is his little signal,” he says to Mac, “that it’s play time, not work time. Otherwise he gets antsy when people are jostling me, which can make lacrosse and pool parties a bitch.”

“So . . . obviously he’s a service dog, but . . . you’re not blind or anything. Oh! Is he for your seizures?” Mac asks Erica.

“Good guess, but no,” Stiles says. “He’s mine. You know how they use service dogs for veterans with PTSD? Well, they also,” he gives a little grunt as a stubborn buckle comes undone, “use them for teenaged assault victims with PTSD.” He slides the vest off Derek’s shoulders. “Go, be free!”

Derek just rolls, showing his belly, demanding a rub to unmat his fur after having the vest on. Stiles grins and obliges as Logan says, “Wait, assault?”

Stiles glances up. “So Veronica didn’t tell you? We’re famous in our hometown. The great Beacon Hills shoot-out of 2012. That was us.”

Allison frowns and crosses her arms over her chest. “It wasn’t a shoot-out. For it to be a shoot-out, both sides have to be able to shoot.”

“Touché,” Stiles says.

“Whoa, that was you guys?” Duncan says. “I read all about it in the news.”

“Yeah, it was pretty freaky,” Stiles says.

Allison grumps. “I got shot in the ass.”

“Let’s see,” Logan says, leaning down to check out the scar.

“Other side, Slick.” Allison pats her hand over the scar that curls over the edge of her butt cheek and across her hip.

“Nice,” Logan says.

Veronica speaks up from where she’s coming back out of the house, dressed in a yellow and white one piece. Meg is behind her, wearing a cute green tankini, and Wallace is trotting along at their heels. “I leave you alone for five minutes and I come back to find your face literally three inches from another girl’s butt? Really, Logan?”

Allison rolls her eyes. “It’s a scar. Made by a bullet. I could’ve done without.”

Isaac speaks up for the first time. “Yeah, kinda going down in history as one of my five crappiest days.”

“How’d this all come up?” Veronica asks, sliding her arm around Logan’s waist and exchanging a quick kiss to show that he was never really in trouble.

“Talking about the dog,” Stiles says, with a gesture. He’s about to say something else when he hears the doorbell from inside. “This must be the famous Dick and Beaver,” he says, and shakes his head. “I hope they have real names, because I don’t think I can call them that.”

“I’ll go let them in,” Logan says.

Derek yawns widely at Stiles, showing his impressive set of teeth, and then gives him a sloppy kiss.

“Ohhhh, who’s a good boy,” Stiles says, ruffling all of Derek’s fur. “That’s right, you are!”

Stiles gets unceremoniously shoved off the chair and the two of them engage in an impromptu wrestling match while the rest of the pack tries not to either gag at the goopiness and just crack up laughing. Veronica just laughs and goes to get another soda while she waits for the others to show up. Logan emerges from the house a minute later. Dick’s already shirtless, wearing nothing but a pair of board shorts. Cassidy hesitantly creeps out of the house behind him, looking as worried and nervous as ever, fully dressed in jeans, a T-shirt, and a flannel over it.

“Hey, the party can start now!” Dick says, raising both arms in the air. He spots Erica and Lydia and says, “Well, _hello_ , ladies. Where’ve you been all my life?”

Lydia’s eyes roll. “Please tell me that doesn’t work on girls from around here.”

“We-e-e-ell,” Erica says, admiring Dick’s washboard abs. She walks up to him, twisting some of her blonde hair around a couple of fingers. “I’ve been in a place where they don’t really make nice surfer boys like you.”

“Oh, God,” Isaac mutters.

“Is this going to be a Kodak moment?” Boyd asks quietly.

“Oh yeah,” Danny says, pulling out his phone so he can get it recorded.

“I can be whatever kind of surfer boy you want me to be,” Dick says confidently, wrapping an arm around Erica’s waist.

Logan looks at Veronica and Duncan and says, underneath his breath, “I suppose it would make me a killjoy to point out that he has a girlfriend.”

Erica laughs, ignores Logan although she heard him perfectly well, and says, “I need you to be the kind of surfer boy who can answer just one little question for me.”

“Shoot,” Dick says.

“Do you know where the clitoris is?”

There’s a pregnant pause. “Oh my _God_ ,” Mac says, and Logan hoots with laughter. Duncan’s jaw is slightly ajar and even Veronica is somewhat taken aback.

“I . . . what?” Dick asks.

“He doesn’t know!” Allison gasps, and then _everyone_ is laughing, even Meg and Cassidy.

“Even I know!” Danny bursts out.

Erica pulls herself out of Dick’s arms and plants herself in front of Logan. “A waste of perfectly good washboard abs. No good for fucking. Why’d you invite him?”

Logan is laughing too hard to talk, so it’s Veronica who answers. “Entertainment value?”

Stiles, who’s sprawled all over one of the deck chairs, cracking up, says, “You’ve gotta give him points for that!”

“I suppose,” Erica says with a sigh. “It’s not like he was my only option.”

Since it’s obvious that Logan’s not going to be any help whatsoever, Duncan reluctantly decides to introduce the brothers. “Okay, so, uh,” he says, ignoring Dick’s furrowed brow and protests of ‘what just happened?’ “That’s, uh, Dick, obviously, and that’s Beaver.”

“Cassidy,” the younger teenager says. It’s not very loud, but it doesn’t need to be for the wolves to hear him.

Stiles blinks. “Oh! Your name is Cassidy?”

“Yeah,” Cassidy says.

“Well, thank fucking God, because no offense or anything, but I wasn’t about to call you ‘Beaver’.”

“Yeah, it’s a dumb nickname my dad saddled me with,” Cassidy says. He’s giving Stiles a cautious eyeballing, like between this and the way Erica schooled Dick, he might actually be able to like these people, which is obviously new for him.

Derek emerges from underneath the chair he’s hidden underneath during the kerfluffle to look at Cassidy. Scott introduces himself and Allison and they both offer a hand. Erica gives her own hand a wave, but doesn’t go too close, because she’s taking her cue from Isaac, who seems to think crowding isn’t the thing to do. By the time everyone’s been introduced to everyone else, Logan has explained to Dick that Erica’s not going to fuck him because ‘you’ll just be using her body to masturbate instead of your hand’, the music has switched over to Bad Company, and Meg is on her fourth cookie.

“These are _amazing_ ,” she says. “Where’d you get them?”

“Oh, I made them,” Stiles says.

“What’s your secret?” she asks.

“A lot of love, an extra teaspoon of vanilla, and just a pinch of crack cocaine,” Stiles says, which makes Meg and Mac laugh.

“Next week he’s making gingersnaps,” Scott says, and Derek’s head comes up, ears forward. “If we can convince him that a double batch is warranted, there should be some left after making friends with all the working dogs at the sheriff’s department.”

“Oh, I can introduce you,” Veronica says, laughing. “They’re softies, really.” She hesitates, then asks, “How’re things going for your dad?”

“So far, so good,” Stiles says, and holds his hands up with his fingers crossed. “Now, weren’t we having a pool party? Last one in’s a rotten egg!” he proclaims suddenly, and runs for the edge, with half the pack on his heels. Erica, true to her word, doesn’t throw herself in. She enters by the stairs at one end, then mostly watches while clinging to the edge.

Several of them are tussling and trying to dunk each other, but Veronica notices that nobody ever grabs Isaac, and although Scott takes his fair share of abuse, nobody tries to dunk his head under the water. Derek, meanwhile, ignores the pool and heads over to the food. His head is just above the table that it’s on. He uses his teeth to pull a plate off the stack and onto the ground, and then just as carefully paws a few cookies down to join it.

“Wow,” Veronica says, and shakes her head, amused. She knows that service dogs can be pretty well-trained, but that’s just ridiculous. She shrugs this off and says, “Wanna swim?” to Logan.

“I thought you’d never ask,” Logan says, tugging his shirt over his head and shouting, “Geronimo!” making a cannonball into the pool and splashing everybody.

“Jerk!” Meg shouts, entering at the stairs with Duncan behind her.

Erica laughs and tucks her now damp hair behind an ear and yells, “You’re working your way down to a quarter of a person!”

“Chicken!” Danny shouts, grabbing Lydia by the waist and lifting her up to sit on his shoulders.

“Fuck yeah!” Logan says, reaching for Veronica.

“Fuck _no_!” Veronica says, laughing.

Stiles hoists himself out of the pool and climbs onto Boyd’s shoulders. “I’m in!”

Dick jumps into the pool next to Erica and says, “How ‘bout it, babe?”

“How ‘bout no,” Erica says. “Both because I don’t want to give you the chance to grope me and because I actually suck at this swimming thing.” She shoos him off, hoping that’s all it would take.

Allison sees this happening, and sees Dick’s gaze land on her. “Hey, Scott!” she calls out. Scott, who knows a pre-emptive rescue when he sees one, ducks down and lets his girlfriend scramble up onto his shoulders.

“Hey, Beaver!” Dick shouts. “Get over here so we can school these guys!”

Cassidy gives him a look from the side of the pool and reluctantly starts to rise to his feet. He looks so miserable about the whole thing that Mac grabs him by the hand and says, “Cassidy’s busy. We’re, uh, gonna get another drink.” She hauls Cassidy to his feet and drags him off.

Isaac moves over to the side by Erica and Dick. “I bet on Allison and Scott.”

“No way, Danny and Lydia,” Erica says. “She’s downright vicious.”

Logan’s giving Veronica enough puppy dog eyes that at this point, she has reluctantly climbed out of the pool and then onto his shoulders. “Okay, but if you purposefully let me fall, I will do something horrible to you,” she says.

“Is that supposed to be new?” Logan asks. “C’mon, Meg! Duncan looks lonely! You don’t want him climbing on Dick’s shoulders out of desperation, do you?”

“I’m good!” Meg says. “But Duncan can do what he wants,” she adds, with a smile that dares Logan to say something.

Since daring Logan to say something is never a good idea under any circumstances, Veronica takes this opportunity to slap one hand over his mouth and then start pushing at Stiles with the other. He laughs and says, “Oh, you didn’t wait for the start signal, it’s _on_ now!”

Allison points an imperious hand towards Lydia. “Forward!”

Lydia’s eyes narrow. “Bring it.”

“Aw, man, girl fight,” Wallace says, rubbing his hands together. “This is gonna be good.”

Duncan looks at Meg. “Are you sure you don’t wanna play? I’ll make sure you don’t fall.”

Meg watches a little wistfully. “Yeah.” She leans in close to him, an arm around his waist so her words are private, at least from human ears. “I think it’s one of those times I have to be a big girl, you know? We’d both feel so stupid if something happened.”

“Hey, where’s the beer?” Dick shouts from the table where Stiles has set up the refreshments.

“There’s no beer, you moron, this is the sheriff’s house!” Logan shouts back, so Stiles doesn’t have to call his guest a moron.

Dick is undeterred. “Then where’s the liquor?”

“Still the sheriff’s house!” Wallace calls over to him.

Derek, who has hunkered down underneath the table with his plate, peers up at Dick, canine expression asking if anyone can be that stupid.

“Yeah, but it can’t be a party without booze,” Dick says.

“Okay, so, it’s not a party,” Logan says. “This is all an illusion. Click your heels together three times and you’ll wake up in your bed saying ‘there’s no place like home’.”

“You can use the spare time to look up female anatomy on the internet,” Erica offers.

Dick just gives her a befuddled look. Several people snicker, and Lydia takes advantage of Stiles’ momentary distraction to shove him off Boyd’s shoulders. He gives a whoop of laughter as he goes down and hits the water with a splash. Undeterred, he pops back up and heads over to the stairs to sit with the others. Eventually, Allison manages to triumph. She and Scott cheer, holding their hands up together.

“Sometimes I wish our house had a pool,” Allison says, as they gather over by the stairs. “None of them ever had.”

Stiles opens his mouth to say something about how maybe they could think about putting one in, but then remembers that they have company. He laughs as Derek pads over to the pool and starts swimming over to them. “Eaten your fill, have you, you glutton?” he asks.

“Your dog is _way_ too smart,” Meg says. “Seriously, I didn’t know dogs could be trained that well.”

Veronica is the one who shrugs a little. “There are German Shepherds in the military that will follow their handlers out of helicopters and planes.” She watches as Stiles’ dog reaches them and rests his head on Stiles’ wet, T-shirt covered shoulder. “Though one that insists on his food being on a plate and doesn’t overeat . . . that’s impressive.”

“Teaching him tricks like using a plate keeps him from getting bored,” Stiles says. “He loves shit like that.” He swims out into the deep end, and Derek follows him. “Watch this,” Stiles continues, grabbing the diving board. He hoists himself up onto it while the others watch in interest. Derek treads water just underneath and gives him a skeptical look, but when Stiles leans down, he manages to get enough buoyancy to bump his nose to Stiles’ chin. The girls giggle.

“That’s adorable,” Logan drawls. “Is it true love?”

“Man’s best friend,” Stiles agrees.

Derek climbs out and hops up onto the end of the diving board over the concrete, tail wagging happily, tongue lolling in a silly canine smile. Lydia leans into Danny’s ear and whispers, “Stiles is in trouble.”

Stiles, for all intents and purposes seeming completely oblivious to what Derek is doing, gets back to his feet. “For my next trick – ”

Given Derek’s size, the jump from the patio to the diving board is easy, and then he only has room for a few running strides before the end of the board. He slams the brakes on and ducks his head, his shoulders hitting Stiles in the upper thighs, sending him forwards into the water. Then Derek hunkers down, flattening himself to the board, trying not to fall off as it bounces up and down.

Stiles surfaces, laughing as he slings water out of his eyes. “C’mon, loser!” he calls to Derek, holding his arms out for Derek to jump in with him. Derek does, of course, because he’s wrapped around Stiles’ little finger. The two of them swim back to the other end, where the others have been watching the show and splashing around in the shallow end. Stiles climbs up the stairs and heads towards the snacks while Derek continues to paddle around.

“Hey,” Dick says suddenly, from where he’s been standing by the snack table, mourning the lack of alcohol. “What’s that?”

Stiles looks down to where Dick is gesturing to see that his T-shirt has ridden up slightly, the wet fabric clinging to his skin, revealing the bottom edge of the worst of his scars. “Oh, it’s – ” he starts to say, before Dick just grabs the hem of the shirt and yanks it up. “Hey!” Stiles protests, stumbling back a few steps.

The entire pack turns, and Scott uses his hands to boost himself up onto the edge and out of the water, but he stays crouched there when Stiles doesn’t immediately move to flatten Dick. Derek, meanwhile, is making his way towards the pool stairs as fast as a dog paddle can take him, occasionally diving under to make himself more water dynamic. Unfortunately, this is one area where being a werewolf doesn’t help very much except in terms of lung capacity. As soon as his paws hit the stairs, he pushes himself out of the water and into a run. He does remember to keep it to a non-supernatural speed, but it’s still definitely a run.

He skids to a dripping halt between Stiles and Dick, reminding himself firmly that service dogs are never aggressive. It’s hard, but instead he just plants himself in an immovable wall, blocking Dick from getting any closer, and then he turns his head and ears just enough to check on Stiles.

“Whoa, dude, check out those _scars_!” Dick says, completely oblivious to the pack’s reaction to what he just did. Stiles grabs his shirt and yanks it back down, but it’s too late; everyone has seen them.

“Holy shit,” Logan says, from where he’s sitting on the edge of the pool. “How’d _that_ happen?”

The moment hangs in tense silence for a good five seconds before Stiles realizes that he _has_ to answer, that they’ve all seen and saying ‘none of your business’ will only make the situation worse. He feels blood rush to his cheeks in a mixture of anger and embarrassment, and bites out, “I did it to myself.”

For a long second, every pack member except Derek turns that feral wolf stare on Dick forcing Stiles to say that. Derek’s gaze is trained on Stiles as he tells himself repeatedly that he isn’t allowed to sink his teeth into Dick’s arm.

Mac is the first person to recover. “Wow, Cassidy, your brother really _is_ a dick.”

“I don’t get it,” Wallace says. He’s not trying to be mean, but is rubbing his hand over the back of his hair. “What do you mean, you did it to yourself?”

Stiles takes a deep breath. “Look, when someone tries to murder your father and he’s in the hospital fighting for his life, you can pick up some weird coping mechanisms, and one of mine was to cut the shit out of myself. Can we please leave it at that, because believe it or not, this is something I’m not overjoyed to talk about, which, you know, is why I wore a T-shirt in the first place.”

“Of course,” Veronica says firmly, feeling more than a twinge of sympathy.

“Yeah, Dick,” Logan says, reaching out and casually shoving Dick into the pool.

Scott settles Indian-style on the pavement and watches with academic interest to see if Dick makes it back to the surface. While Dick is busy, Derek moves away from Stiles and the food long enough to shake himself off vigorously before moving back to Stiles’ side. Stiles carefully sits down next to Scott, dipping his feet in the pool. Derek settles against his back, staying alert but pressing his reassuring bulk against Stiles.

Dick surfaces laughing, and Veronica takes a moment to admire how a person can really be _that_ stupid and oblivious. She shakes her head a little as Logan sits next to her, wrapping an arm around her waist. “So, are we still having a party or what?” he asks.

“I think we have a beach ball!” Isaac says.

“Even I can usually play volleyball without drowning,” Erica agrees cheerfully. There’s some debate while they split into teams. The pool is big enough for plenty of people. Scott jumps back in. Mac and Cassidy are declared ‘outfield’ and take up positions on opposite sides of the pool, since they aren’t swimming, to put the ball back in play if it gets hit out of bounds. Only Stiles doesn’t join in, staying where he is on the side of the pool, down by the deep end, just watching.

After a little while, Veronica gets out of the pool and goes to sit down beside him. Derek raises his head and pins her down with a stare, so she settles down a few feet away, since the dog’s intention is obviously to tell her that Stiles shouldn’t be crowded right now. “You okay?” she asks.

“Yeah,” Stiles say. “I mean . . . not great, but . . . okay.”

“I’m sorry,” Veronica says. “I mean . . . I know I’m not responsible for Dick, but I kind of feel like all of Neptune should apologize on behalf of having spawned him. But . . . I know how it feels.”

“Yeah, I guess you do,” Stiles says. He looks up and smiles at her. “You have fun snooping around my house when you went to change? See anything you like?”

Veronica can’t help it; a blush flames up in her cheeks. “Wow, I, sorry,” she says. “I didn’t mean to _snoop_ , per se, I was just looking around, but . . . sometimes I forget that my definition of ‘just looking around’ and a normal person’s version aren’t really compatible.” She kicks her feet back and forth. “Are you mad?”

“Nah,” Stiles says. “I get it. Paranoia. It’s a way of life.”

Erica and Scott glance over at the pair of them occasionally, but since Stiles seems to be as comfortable as possible, given the circumstances, and Derek is relatively relaxed, they don’t intervene. If the entire pack tries to bean Dick upside the head with the ball more often than is strictly necessary, no one calls them on it. In fact, after a while that turns into something of a game itself, with Mac and Cassidy participating from the sidelines.

“Hey, I’m starved,” Stiles says suddenly, getting up and heading towards the refreshments. He’s glad he got as much food as he did, since they’ve put a considerable dent in it. “Who’d be up for some pizza? Does anyone still deliver?”

Veronica glances around for a clock and finds one hanging on the patio wall. It’s just after ten thirty. “Besides Domino’s, which, yuck,” she says. “Cho’s takes orders ‘til eleven but stops delivery at ten.”

“Maybe your boyfriend could pick it up on his way home,” Wallace suggests. “You said he was workin’, right?”

“Yeah, I,” Stiles says, trying to come up with some reason this wouldn’t work.

He’s saved from the trouble when Dick says, “Wait, you’re a fag?”

“Did – did you just – ” Danny says.

Stiles’ temper snaps. “Okay, that’s it,” he says. “We’re done here. Get out.”

Dick blinks at him. “Hey, dude, take it easy, it was just – ”

“Just a question from a self-important, ignorant, bigoted douchebag who is no longer welcome at this party,” Stiles says. “I am totally serious. Get the fuck out.”

Lydia smiles, ever the gracious host. “Let me show you to the door.”

“Pff, whatever, this party’s lame anyway,” Dick says. “C’mon, Beaver, let’s go find some people who know how to have a good time.”

Cassidy half-rises to his feet, but then darts an uncertain look at Stiles, who says, “Cassidy, for Christ’s sake, don’t leave just because I kicked him out. You’re not being a jerk; you don’t have to go.”

“Whatever,” Dick says, and heads for the door without another word. Lydia follows, her pace sedate, but obviously planning to make sure that he actually leaves, preferably without stealing or breaking anything on his way through the house.

Danny watches Dick and Lydia’s progress as long as he can without actually having to move. Then he glances at Stiles and says, “Thanks.” He knows that Stiles does things for the pack long before he would do them for himself. He learned that much in his first day in the pack.

“Wow, I, sorry about him,” Logan says, rubbing a hand over the back of his head. He looks almost embarrassed, which Veronica knows is unusual since Logan typically has no shame. That means that, despite all his commentary, Logan actually likes these people. “You know how sometimes there’s this guy you’ve been friends with your whole life, and somehow you’re still friends with him, and you have no idea why?”

It’s Danny who laughs and says, “Oh yeah. I totally know that feel.” And then without further ado, he grabs Logan by the shoulders and dunks him.

Stiles laughs, and that breaks the tension, and everyone goes back to having a good time. Even Cassidy starts to relax, though he never goes near the pool. He and Mac continue to hang out on the deck chair they’re sharing, talking about who-knows-what and eating an entire bowl of chips and salsa between the two of them. Everyone forgets all about the pizza, and Stiles just brings out more snacks from the house.

It’s nearly half an hour later before Veronica realizes she doesn’t see Stiles or his dog anywhere. She murmurs to Logan that she’s going to go find the bathroom, and slips into the house. It’s dark and silent. A nice place, very obviously rented from the tasteful, inoffensive decorations, and newly occupied from the boxes that are still stacked in places. She had explored it pretty thoroughly on her last trip inside.

She does hear Stiles’ voice, though, and sidles towards it curiously. As she approaches, she hears him say, “I don’t know. I just didn’t think I’d get so homesick. Allison’s moved a lot, but the rest of us have all lived in Beacon Hills our whole lives, and everybody else seems fine. I, I just, I miss the house and the forest, I miss my own kitchen and my own bed. I even miss Jackson, for fuck’s sake. Though remind me next time we’re in town that I owe him an ass-kicking for actually _posting_ that stupid website. ‘It’s a computer science credit’, my pasty white ass.”

At first, she thinks he’s just talking to the dog, so she’s surprised when there’s a low rumble and then she hears another voice. It’s vaguely familiar, so she guesses it’s Derek, because it certainly isn’t Sheriff Stilinski. “You could have stayed. Your dad would have let you. Even if he didn’t want you in the house by yourself, you could’ve stayed with me.”

“Yeah, I know, but . . . I would’ve been on the phone with him every half hour checking to make sure he was okay. You know how I get.”

“Yeah,” Derek agrees.

“And this is a big deal for him, that they picked _him_ out of all the county sheriffs in California, I mean . . . I don’t want to fuck this up for him, so I guess I’ll just have to handle it.”

“You talk to Gwen about it?”

“I have a skype session with her on Tuesday. I’ll ask her about it then.” Stiles sighs. “Once more unto the breach.”

“You were enjoying the party up until . . .”

“I know. Shit. Stupid.” Stiles’ voice gets thin and tight for a minute. “They saw my _scars_ , Derek. I . . . fuck. That shouldn’t have fucked me up the way it did. Dick’s lucky I didn’t break his wrist.”

“I’ll make sure you get a gold star on your chart,” Derek says.

“You jerk,” Stiles says, but then he’s laughing. There’s a pause and then the high-pitched bark of a dog. “Get off me, you idiot. Stop slobbering all over me. You failed in your duties. You were off having a good time in the pool while I was manhandled. Nothing but dry kibble for you, buster.”

Veronica’s starting to creep away, since the conversation seems to be over, but then Stiles is in the hallway and he catches sight of her. He stops and – it’s not a flinch, not exactly. Not a guilty flinch, or a ‘you heard me’ sort of flinch. It’s an ‘I’m going for a weapon’ flinch, before he recognizes her. “Oh. Veronica.”

“Sorry, I was looking for the bathroom,” she says.

“Hah! No, you weren’t,” he says, grinning at her.

“Well, I was at first,” she admits. “Then I was shamelessly eavesdropping. Was that Derek I heard?”

Stiles blinks at her for a moment, and then, inexplicably, glances down at the dog who’s now standing between them. “Oh! Yeah. He got home from the studio a little while ago. But he’s not really the party type.”

“A feeling I know well,” she says.

Stiles laughs a little, but leans against the kitchen counter, making no move to return to the party. “I don’t know how you do it,” he says. “Let your dad go chase bail jumpers in Mexico and shit without spending the entire time he’s gone curled under your bed, hyperventilating.”

“It can be tough sometimes,” she says. “Worse after he got hurt. But . . . I just have to trust him to know what he’s doing.”

“Well, yeah, sure.” Stiles gives a shrug. “But it’s like, it never goes away. You know?”

“What, you mean, you become the suspicious sort of person that gets invited to a party at this nice guy’s house, and instead of changing into your swimsuit, you snoop around his house, and instead of looking for the bathroom, you eavesdrop on a private conversation that was none of your business?” Veronica says brightly. “Yeah, I think I know a little something about that.”

Stiles lets out a snort of laughter. “I don’t really blame you. We’re pretty weird, right?”

“Maybe a little,” she says, “but I’m pretty weird, too.”

“Solidarity, sister,” Stiles says, holding his hand out for a fist bump, which she returns. “Come on, let’s go attempt to remember what fun is.”

 

~ ~ ~ ~


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think this chapter introduces the only two remaining characters from Veronica Mars that will be of any importance. ^_^
> 
> Again, warnings for references to self-harm, hate speech, and general assholery.

 

The weekend is quiet. Veronica works with her father on a missing persons case, works a shift at the Java Hut, and does her homework. She spends Saturday night at Logan’s, and hangs out with Wallace and Mac on Sunday afternoon. It’s peaceful, which she’s grateful for.

As soon as she gets to school Monday morning, she can feel the buzz of tension which means there’s a hot rumor going around. This could be absolutely anything, but with Meg pregnant, she’s a little bit on the wary side. At least one or two people at Stiles’ party had probably figured it out, both from her refusal of any alcohol and the fact that she wouldn’t play chicken. The thought that someone there might have betrayed her trust worries her. She wants details, so she sends Wallace to snoop around for her with some of his basketball and cheerleader friends.

When he rejoins her at her locker after second period, he looks unexpectedly sober, and Veronica’s stomach tightens. “What, what is it?” she asks.

“I guess Dick told a bunch of guys about Stiles’ scars,” Wallace says. “They’re all talking about how he’s some kinda freak who gets off on hurting himself.”

“Oh, crap,” Veronica breathes out. That hadn’t occurred to her. Why hadn’t that occurred to her? Dick is an idiot with a big mouth. She should have thought to have Logan tell him not to say anything about it, or at least have warned Stiles. She realizes with a knot of dread forming in her stomach that her next class is one she shares with Stiles and Lydia.

“Yeah, and you know the way rumors blow out of proportion in this place,” Wallace says. “I mean, I saw those scars, yeah, they were bad, but . . . the guys out there are making it sound like he carves Satantic ritual symbols into his skin or some shit like that.”

“Okay. I have to . . . I’d better go talk to him,” Veronica says. She shoves her books into her bag and heads for her class.

Stiles is already in the classroom. He looks up when she comes in, but then looks back down at where he’s texting. She sits down next to him. She can’t help but notice now that there’s a multitude of thin, white scars on his forearms. They hadn’t been there before – or more likely, he had been wearing some kind of concealer that he’s now washed off.

“Stiles, I – ” she says.

He lifts up a hand to stop her, a rather imperious gesture that takes her aback. He takes a deep breath and says, “I’m not angry at you, Veronica. But . . . I need a little time to deal with this before I’ll be ready to talk to you. Is that okay?”

Veronica swallows and then nods. “Yeah. That’s okay.” She gets up and goes to her own seat. She’s actually a little surprised by how upset she is about this. It’s not just that she was starting to consider Stiles a friend. It’s that she knows what he’s gone through. He’s one of the few people she’s ever met who would actually understand her.

Logan drops down in the seat next to her. “You okay?” he asks.

“I don’t think I am,” Veronica says with a sigh. Then class starts and she’s forced to pay attention. She has study hall next, but Stiles asks Mr. Wu for a library pass and leaves just as Veronica’s sitting down. Scott and Erica are there, and they say hello to her in a manner that’s more civil than friendly, but at least it isn’t hostile.

Veronica meets up with the others at lunch. Stiles’ friends have chosen their usual tables, but Stiles isn’t there. “I can’t even imagine how awful he feels,” Meg says, looking sadly at the empty seat. “I know what it’s like to have everyone at school talking about you like that.”

“I think we all do,” Veronica says. She looks up at Logan and says, “Does Dick even _realize_ how much of an asshole he is?”

“Nope,” Logan says.

“I wonder if he went home,” Wallace says. “Stiles, I mean. Not Dick.” Dick is nowhere to be seen, but that’s only because he almost always leaves campus at lunch to visit Del Taco or Burger King or wherever strikes his fancy.

“Uh, I don’t think so,” Duncan says, and gestures, because there’s Stiles.

He’s coming out of the cafeteria with a tray full of food like usual, but one thing is definitely _not_ usual: he’s shirtless. He’s wearing jeans and a pair of sunglasses, but nothing else. Veronica, who hadn’t really gotten a good look at the scars at the party, can’t help but stare. Everyone else is, too. Except for Stiles’ friends. They just go on eating their lunches like this isn’t at all weird.

“Oh, hey, can I grab that?” Stiles says, leaning over Shelly Pomeroy to grab the salt shaker off her table. She flinches back as his abdomen crosses right in front of her face. “Hey, that looks good, mind if I try it?” he adds to another table, where Carrie Bishop is sitting. Veronica is impressed. Stiles has already figured out who the worst gossips are. He leans over Carrie and picks a French fry up off her tray.

“Is he . . . drunk?” Meg asks in a low voice.

“His coordination is way too good,” Veronica says, as Stiles continues through the crowd, for all the world oblivious to his audience. He steps up on one of the benches and actually walks through a table to get to his own. Then, instead of sitting down so he’s facing the others, he sits on the table itself, facing outward, so everyone can keep staring.

“Honey badger just don’t give a fuck,” Wallace says, nodding in admiration.

From their interaction earlier, Veronica knows that Stiles does indeed give a fuck. But he’s certainly making it look like he doesn’t. She gives him a little smile. He smiles back and salutes her. The rest of his friends go on eating their lunches as if nothing has changed.

“Put a shirt on, fag!” someone yells. She thinks it’s Tad. Breaking up with Carmen hadn’t improved him very much.

“Why, you don’t like what you see?” Stiles asks, blowing him a kiss.

Before a fight can break out, two teachers make their way into the courtyard. One of them frowns at Stiles. “Why aren’t you wearing a shirt?” she asks.

“Why not?” Stiles asks whimsically, aware that everyone in the courtyard is staring at him.

“Because you have to wear one,” she says.

Stiles shrugs. “I’m working on my tan.”

The teacher frowns at him. “Okay, come with me. We’re going to the principal’s office. Right now, get your things . . .”

Stiles leaves his stuff, knowing that the others will collect it for him. But before leaving, he turns back to the courtyard and says, “Thank you, Neptune! I’ll be here all semester!” Then he turns and goes inside.

Veronica excuses herself hastily and goes out to her car. She hasn’t used her little bug in Clemmons’ office in a really long time, but she’s sure that she doesn’t want to miss this. Not just because of her curiosity. Because she wants to be sure that Stiles is okay.

By the time she gets out to her car and has the radio tuned to the right frequency, Stiles is already in Clemmons’ office and Clemmons is saying, “And what’s your sudden aversion to your shirt, Mr. Stilinski?”

“The entire school was talking about my scars, because Dick Casablancas told them I was a freak who liked to carve symbols into his stomach or some shit like that.” Stiles says, his tone matter-of-fact. “Since they all seemed to want to see them so badly, I decided to give them a good look.”

Clemmons sighs. “I’m willing to cut you some slack because you’re new here. If you put on a shirt, go back to class, and keep it on the rest of the day, we’ll let this go without disciplinary action. But I will have to call your father.”

“Go right ahead,” Stiles says. “I already texted him to let him know you’d be giving him a ring. He knows about the scars. I have a therapist. She knows about them, too. It’s all good.”

“Okay.” Clemmons’ shooing motion is silent, but Veronica can practically see him making it. “Go on, get to class.”

“Yes, sir.”

There’s the noise of a door opening and then closing, then nothing but silence for a long minute. Then Clemmons on his phone. The mic isn’t good enough to pick up both halves of the conversation, so she can only hear Clemmons. “Hi, Sheriff Stilinski, please. Van Clemmons at Neptune High. He should be expecting my call.”

Another long silence. “Yes, sheriff, thank you . . . yes, he said he had notified you. Uh huh. Shirtless. Yes, I will talk to the other student, but my concern here is . . . okay. Yes. But you understand I had to make sure you were aware, given the nature . . . thank you, I appreciate that. No, I told him we would let it slide, since it’s obvious he was provoked. Okay. Yes, I’m sure. Good bye.”

Disappointing, Veronica thinks, but in a way, disappointing is good. Stiles isn’t in trouble. Dick won’t get in trouble either, if only because he’s too stupid to realize why what he did was wrong. There’s no point in waiting around to hear that conversation, so Veronica heads back inside the school.

Her last three classes are uneventful. She sees Stiles last period, but doesn’t try to talk to him. She follows him out, but not because she’s actively following him. There are only so many routes from the classroom to the parking lot. She sees the black Camaro pulled up again, with Derek leaning against the hood, and watches from a distance as Stiles walks over and wraps his arms around Derek’s waist, watches Stiles press his cheek into Derek’s chest and close his eyes. Derek holds onto him like that for almost a full minute before he lets go, then leans over and kisses Stiles on the crown of his head. They exchange a few quick words before Derek opens the car door and Stiles slides inside, out of Veronica’s view.

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

Given the events of the day, Stiles is not in the best of moods to be entertaining visitors. Unfortunately, he takes his position as sheriff’s son pretty seriously, and this is a town where appearance and influence matters. So as tempted as he is to just ignore the doorbell when it rings, he doesn’t. The house is pretty quiet at the moment. Stiles had wanted space; after what had happened at school, he felt smothered, claustrophobic. The pack is all familiar with this mood and by now they always pick up on it. So they’ve made themselves scarce.

Scott and Allison have gone out on a ‘Monday afternoon date’ to a vintage ice cream parlor. Lydia was staying after school for one of those business club meetings that Stiles finds so patently ridiculous. Danny’s at school, too, not because of the business club but because he and Mac are working on some computer thing together. The two of them have already hit it off like peas in a pod; despite their very different personalities, this is the first time each of them have had someone who understands their geek language. Boyd and Isaac have gone to the library; they’ve found in recent months that this is a bonding experience, since both of them love books but have never had the money to purchase whatever they wanted. Neptune’s library is bigger than Beacon Hills’, although Isaac says the selection in certain genres is poor.

Erica has stayed home, because she doesn’t like to leave Stiles when he’s like this, but she’s out in the backyard sunbathing, giving him all the space he needs. Stiles is somewhat surprised that she hasn’t already burned to a crisp, given how much sunbathing she’s been doing since their arrival in Neptune. Derek is home as well, perched in his usual spot on the kitchen counter with his sketchbook while Stiles is doing some elaborate cooking project that involves marinating steaks in eight different marinades. There will be blind taste-testing later, Stiles has informed them.

He really should be doing his homework. Despite how ridiculous some of the offered classes are, Stiles’ academic schedule is no joke. But he’s too tense and edgy to focus on it right now. Derek already knows he has a not-so-secret plan to take some Adderall in the evening and then stay up late to do the homework. It’s not something he approves of, but there’s only so far he can get with Stiles.

“I don’t even know what it bothers me so much,” Stiles says, as he vigorously mixes honey into soy sauce. “I mean, it’s so ridiculous to be upset about it because it’s _not_ self-harm, you know? So why the fuck should I care if people think it is?”

Derek doesn’t really have a good answer to that, but he says, “Maybe because they were assholes about it.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Stiles says. “Like . . . it’s a good thing I’m really _not_ a depressive cutter, because if I was, I’d be slitting my wrists right now. Jesus, what’s wrong with the people in this town?”

Derek gives a little shrug. He’s about to say something else when the doorbell rings. Stiles sighs, surveys his project, and says, “I guess I’d better go see who that is.” He looks down at his apron, which reads ‘kiss the fucking cook’ in bold black letters, and slides it over his head. He tosses it onto a chair and heads for the door with Derek on his heels.

The man at the door is vaguely familiar, in an ‘I’ve seen you in photographs but never met you’ sort of way. Medium height with tanned skin, dark hair, and perfectly white teeth in what looks like a permanent smile from the creases near his eyes. He offers that smile now and says, “You must be Stiles! I’ve heard so much about you!”

“You have the advantage of me,” Stiles says, offering his hand.

“Woody Goodman,” the man says, shaking it vigorously, like they’re old frat brothers. “Mind if I step in for a minute?”

Stiles does a quick mental visitation of the foyer and living room. Allison was cleaning her guns on the coffee table. Nobody’s vacuumed since Saturday, so there are clumps of fur on the cushions. He’s pretty sure that Erica’s bra and skirt are draped over the back of the sofa. “Uh, how about I step out?” he asks. “The house is kinda messy.”

“Sure, sure,” Woody says, still smiling broadly. He catches sight of Derek and offers his hand. “Woody Goodman. County supervisor.”

Derek shakes it, but looks somewhat reluctant about it. “Derek Hale. I’m a friend of Stiles’.”

“It’s good to finally meet you,” Woody says. “Hey, I was really hoping to catch your dad. I stopped by the station but they said he was out in the field. I thought he might be here.”

“Why would he be here if he was out in the field?” Stiles asks, frowning slightly.

“We-e-e-ell, not to be indelicate, but I guess you had some trouble at school today?” Woody says. “My daughter Gia is in your class. She may have mentioned something. She’s a talker, that Gia! Anyway, I thought maybe he had come home to check on you and I could catch him here.”

“Oh,” Stiles says. “Well, I talked to him on the phone earlier and he said he wouldn’t be home until around six. I think he was checking into some carjacking ring or something.”

“That’s our new sheriff!” Woody says, with more enthusiasm than Stiles can possibly believe is warranted. “All about the job! Okay, no problem. I’ll talk to him later. But hey, since I’m here – no use in underestimating the new generation! Have you heard about incorporation at all?”

“Uh, no,” Stiles says. He immediately wishes he had said yes, because Woody launches into what’s obviously a prepared spiel about how much he thinks Neptune would benefit from becoming incorporated, and what a great idea it would be, and how he’s going to start campaigning for it, and he would really like the sheriff’s support. It lasts almost ten minutes, despite Stiles’ increasingly impolite attempts to disentangle himself. Goodman appears completely oblivious to the fact that Stiles really doesn’t give a shit, and Stiles thinks that this probably makes him a great politician, but also harder to get rid of than a Jehovah’s witness. Meanwhile, Derek is standing right behind Stiles, shifting from foot to foot. Something about the situation is making him desperately uncomfortable, and Stiles really has no idea what. Derek is easy for him to read – his body language alone gives away volumes to those who know him well, along with his scent and the feel of him down the bond that links them together.

Stiles finally resorts to, “oh my gosh I left the oven on do you smell something burning?” in order to get rid of the perky, persistent county supervisor. Woody shakes his hand again, then tries to shake Derek’s, but Derek already has one broad hand locked around Stiles’ upper arm and is towing him back into the house. “I’ll tell my dad you stopped by!” Stiles calls out as Derek practically slams the door in Woody’s face. There’s a moment of silence afterwards. “Wow,” Stiles finally says. “Wowwwww. What the actual fuck was that?”

Derek gives a little snarl. “I don’t like him,” he says.

“Yeah, I could tell,” Stiles says. He heads back into the kitchen and surveys the ingredients, trying to remember where he was in the process. “I’ll grant that he sure as hell can’t take a hint, but you seemed ready to claw his face off.”

“I just . . . I didn’t like him,” Derek says. He goes to the sink and starts washing his hands to scrub off the scent that Woody’s handshake left on him. “I don’t want him touching you or anyone else in the pack. I don’t want him in the den.”

“Uh, newsflash for you, Derek,” Stiles says, “Nobody is coming into the den. It looks like a fucking den. Nobody from Neptune is getting invited over here again, ever.”

Derek relaxes a little, although his spine is still ramrod straight. “It was just . . . something about him. I can’t put my finger on it.”

Stiles gives a little shrug. “He’s a snake oil salesman. Everything he does is calculated and insincere. Of course you don’t like him. I don’t like him either.”

“I guess you’re right.” Derek sighs a little. He goes over to rub his cheek against Stiles’ hair and then says, “Euuw. You still smell like him. Wash up.”

“Sir, yes, sir,” Stiles says, amused, heading for the sink.

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

Veronica is relieved beyond words the next day when Stiles greets her with his usual amount of cheer as if nothing had happened the previous day. He tells her about Woody’s visit and his spiel about incorporation, which his father has said he thinks is a really bad idea. Woody will be terribly disappointed if he expects the sheriff’s support. Veronica concurs with Sheriff Stilinski’s conclusion. They chat about that, and about Scott and Danny having made the lacrosse team, and Lydia’s decided to join the ‘future business leaders of America’ thing. Veronica’s glad they’re settling in, and that there will be another girl in the FBLA. She starts telling him about the case she’s currently working on for her father, some woman who is absolutely nuts about her fiancée, literally.

“So then she asks ‘what comes after the platinum package’,” Veronica says, trying not to laugh as she and Stiles walk out to the parking lot after their last class, “and I was so flustered I actually said ‘uh, the psycho package’? I mean, what? She called me at 3 o’clock in the morning! And that, my friend, is one of the perils of private investigation.”

“Yeah, I’m _definitely_ going to stick with actual law enforcement,” Stiles says. “I respect what you and your dad do, but there’s way too much . . .”

“Underwear-sniffing?” Veronica says.

“Yeah,” Stiles says, with a snort. “I don’t think I could ever be a typical cop, like my dad. I’m way too jumpy for that. I’d like to do profiling or forensics, but lately I’ve actually really gotten into doing cold cases. That sort of shit really appeals to me.”

“Solving the unsolvable?” Veronica asks.

“Yeah. I mean, say you had never figured out what happened to Lilly, and twenty years later it was still unsolved? Wouldn’t it be kind of neat to take a crack at it?”

“If we weren’t talking about my best friend’s murder, sure,” Veronica says.

Stiles winces. “Sorry. Sometimes I get insensitive about that kind of shit.”

“ ‘S’okay,” Veronica says. She’s about to say something else when they round the Jeep and Stiles just stops dead, so abruptly that Veronica nearly walks into him. “What?” she says, and then leans around him to see the car. Someone has scratched ‘go home fag’ onto the driver’s side door. “Oh my God,” Veronica says.

Stiles is just _still_ for a moment, although his body vibrates with tension. Then he wheels around and demands, “Are there security cameras in this parking lot?”

Veronica winces. “No. Sorry. There really _should_ be, but – ”

“Fuck this,” Stiles says, pulling out his phone.

She blinks at him. “Who are you calling?”

“I’m calling the God damned cops,” he says.

“Uh . . . why?”

Stiles stops dialing for a moment. “Vandalism is a crime in Neptune, isn’t it?”

“Well, yeah, but . . .” Veronica’s at a loss as to how to explain to Stiles that that’s just not how things work around here.

He’s already talking into his phone. “Yeah, I need to report a crime. Someone’s vandalized my car. Yeah. Neptune High parking lot. Just look for the camo-colored Jeep with the really pissed off guy standing next to it.” He hangs up and then starts to scroll through something. Then he dials again. “Isaac? Your last class is with Danny, right? He with you? Okay. Can you warn him that someone scratched ‘go home fag’ into my car door, so when he shows up he doesn’t get hit in the gut with it the way I did? Yeah, sorry. Okay, see you in a few.”

“You have your friend’s class schedules entered into your phone?” Veronica asks.

“You don’t?” he responds. “Here I thought we were partners in useless paranoia.”

There isn’t much Veronica can say to that, and before she can think of something, Scott and Allison show up, holding hands, with Boyd and Erica behind them. Scott rounds the car, takes one look at it, and says, “Uh oh . . .”

“You are not wrong,” Stiles says.

“I know someone who can probably fix it for pretty cheap,” Veronica offers, scanning the parking lot to see if Weevil’s around anywhere.

“That is so epically not the point,” Stiles says. “This was a custom fucking paint job that was a gift from my dad.”

“Are you going to ruin somebody?” Erica asks, perking up. “I’d be up for a good ruining.”

Stiles is about to reply when Lydia shows up, followed only seconds later by Isaac and Danny. Isaac’s clearly done his job, because Danny’s jaw is tight and his shoulders are tense. He takes one look at the car and mutters, “Jesus,” but doesn’t say anything else about it. Stiles is so furious that Danny seems strangely calm in comparison, even though he’s obviously upset.

Veronica pulls out her phone and texts Weevil asking him if he’s still at school and to drop by if he has a minute. Weevil hates texting, so he doesn’t respond, but she guesses he’s probably in the machine shop and will be there soon.

“Hey, you guys don’t all need to stick around,” Stiles says, as Veronica’s doing this. “I’m going to have to give a statement and wait while the cops do their thing. You should head home.”

“I’m staying,” Danny says firmly.

“Me too,” Erica says, looping an arm around Stiles’ waist.

The others hem and haw and hesitate, but Stiles eventually convinces Lydia to drive home in her car and take Allison, Boyd, and Isaac with her. Scott decides he’d rather stay. By the time all this has sorted out, a police cruiser has pulled up and a uniformed officer that Veronica knows by sight but not by name is getting out.

“This the car?” he asks.

“You see any other cars with ‘go home fag’ carved into the driver’s side door?” Stiles responds, but then he gets a hold of himself. “Sorry, Officer uh . . . Paulson,” he says after a quick glance at the nametag. “Yes, this is the car.”

“Mm hm.” The officer kneels down next to the lovely inscription and examines it for a few moments. “Well, unfortunately, there’s probably not a lot we can do,” he says, getting up and dusting off his knees. “Pretty much every kid who goes to school here would be a suspect, so . . .”

“So?” It’s Danny who loses his temper, which surprises Veronica. “This is a _hate crime_. You can’t just brush it off with ‘there are too many suspects.’”

Officer Paulson frowns at Danny and says, “Like I said, not much we can do about it.”

“You’re serious,” Stiles says, his voice flat. “You don’t want to check for prints or anything.”

“Check for prints,” Paulson chuckles. “Kid, you watch too much CSI. Even if we have any, none of the kids here would be in the system.”

That’s just flat-out untrue, since at least half the PCHers go to Neptune High, but Veronica doesn’t see much point in mentioning that. She’s watching Stiles vibrate with tension, and feeling a little sorry for him. Much to her surprise, he actually smiles. “Okay. That’s your final answer?”

“Yeah, kid,” Paulson says. “Sorry ‘bout your car.”

“Okay. Hang on. I’m calling my dad.”

Paulson actually laughs. “Kid, I don’t know who your dad is, but with you driving a piece of junk like that, it’s not going to be anybody whose opinion I care about.”

Weevil saunters up while this is going on, parking his motorcycle a few spaces down. He surveys the damage on the car and opens his mouth to say something. Veronica shushes him and says in a low voice, “I suspect we’re not going to want to miss this.”

“Oh, really?” Stiles says to Paulson, as he presses the phone against his ear. “So if _that_ car was vandalized,” he says, gesturing to the red Porsche parked a few cars down, “would that be worth an investigation? That’s interesting. I – oh, hi Dad. No, I’ve got a small problem. Someone’s keyed ‘go home fag’ into the door of my car.”

Sheriff Stilinski says “What?!” so loudly that even Veronica hears him. Paulson rolls his eyes.

“Yeah, but see, that’s actually not the problem,” Stiles says. “The problem is that I have this fine officer of the law telling me there ain’t shit he can do about it. Uh huh. Paulson. Yeah, I’ll put him on.”

Stiles holds out his phone. When Paulson doesn’t move to take it, Stiles feigns embarrassment and says, “Oh, man, I forgot to introduce myself, didn’t I. My name is Stiles Stilinski. My dad? Is your new _boss_. Take the motherfucking phone.”

There’s a moment of blankness on Paulson’s face before the light dawns and horror starts to bloom across it. He practically cringes as he takes the phone from Stiles’ hand.

“Uh, yes sir, this is . . . yes, I . . . okay. Yes, sir. I – okay. Of course.” Another cringe. “Yes, sir.” He takes the phone away from his ear and clears his throat, holding it back out to Stiles. “He, uh, he wants to talk to you.”

Stiles takes it back. “Yeah, I’m here.” A pause. “No, I’m not fucking okay, I – ” Stiles stops for a moment and takes a deep breath. “But I’m handling it, I’ll be fine. Yeah, I’ll see you tonight.” He slides the phone into his pocket, looks at Paulson, and says, “Get to work.”

“I, uh, I need to get some stuff from my car,” Paulson says, and scurries away.

“Holy crap,” Veronica says, fanning herself. “Is that what it’s like watching _me_ at work?”

“Pretty much,” Weevil says. “Have you met your match, V?”

Veronica laughs. “Maybe I have,” she says. “Weevil, this is Stiles. Stiles, Weevil. His uncle runs a body shop. He can maybe help you out.”

“Worth a discount just to see you light that guy’s ass on fire,” Weevil agrees, exchanging a handshake. “Won’t be able to do much about the paint job, though. Custom?”

“Yeah,” Stiles says, with a sigh. “Don’t even worry about it. Just do it in primer and I’ll get it redone next time I have the chance to get to Beacon Hills. Which may be sooner rather than later, given my dad’s reaction to this little stunt.”

Weevil nods and says something about replacing a panel altogether and the two of them talk shop for a few minutes. Erica is slowly inching around Stiles, giving Weevil an up and down glance that Veronica is starting to recognize. She’s thinking about their first meeting, and Erica saying that Stiles didn’t want people thinking she was a slut without having a chance to prove it first. Weevil is pretty attractive, Veronica has to admit, with his leather jacket and his motorcycle; he seems like he might be Erica's type.

They won’t be able to move the car for a while, since Officer Paulson is now back and carefully checking it for prints (which he almost immediately finds, because rich high school kids aren’t smart enough to wear latex gloves when keying a car), so Weevil and Stiles make some arrangements for him to drop it by the shop the next day.

“Let me give you the address,” Weevil says, patting down his pockets.

“Better idea,” Erica says brightly. “Why don’t you take me there and then I can tell Stiles where it is later.”

Weevil gives her a skeptical look. “You want to see my uncle’s auto shop?”

“Actually I’m angling to see you without your clothes on,” Erica says in a forthright tone that has Veronica choking on her laughter. “If that’s at your uncle’s auto shop, okay. I’d be cool with that.”

“I, uh . . . you’re serious, aren’t you,” Weevil says. He doesn’t seem quite sure what to do with someone as forward as Erica.

“Oh, wait, I have to ask you one thing first,” Erica says. “Do you know where the clitoris is?”

“Well, I’m becoming increasingly interested in locating yours,” Weevil tells her.

Erica grins at him. “So are you gonna show me your bike or what?”

“Bet your ass I am,” Weevil says, getting an arm around her waist.

“Don’t wait up!” Erica shouts over her shoulder at Stiles, who’s shaking his head, clearly amused by her behavior.

“Wow,” Veronica finally says.

“That’s Erica,” Stiles says, laughing. “She was sick for almost her entire life. When they finally got her epilepsy under control and she stopped having seizures and being miserable, she decided to live life to the fullest. Among other things, she decided that sex is fun, she enjoys having it, and therefore sees no reason why she should be bound by other people’s concept of ‘morals’.”

“Good for her,” Veronica says, thinking of Lilly Kane, and for once smiling at the memories.

 

~ ~ ~ ~


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear that I'll get to the plot of this story as soon as I've finished letting Stiles bitch slap people...

Two days later, Veronica is sitting on one of the benches outside school, prepping some notes for an exam later that day, minding her own business, when Wallace jogs over. “Oh, man, V,” he says, grinning widely. “You have _got_ to see this. Come on. Right now.”

“Is it a pony? You know I’ve always wanted a pony,” Veronica says, but she starts packing her stuff away as requested.

“No, it’s not a pony,” Wallace says. “I just think that we’ve finally found someone weirder than you.”

Veronica halts dramatically. “I don’t know whether I should be hurt or intrigued,” she says, and ponders for a moment. “Intrigued. Show me.”

Wallace waves her on, still grinning. They go out to the parking lot and she realizes a few moments later that Stiles’ Jeep is back. It’s been gone for a few days. Despite the way he had forced Paulson to do his job, they hadn’t had any luck tracking down the culprit. The prints weren’t in the system and they couldn’t find any witness willing to admit they saw anyone near his car. All that is in the back of Veronica’s mind now as she sees the Jeep and her jaw drops. Instead of repainting the driver side door in green and brown camo like the rest of the car, or a solid green or brown to match, or even just leaving it coated in primer to be done later, Stiles has painted it in bright, happy, rainbow colors.

“Wow,” Veronica finally manages. “You do like to live dangerously. What can I say, honey badger? It’s _fabulous_.”

Stiles grins at her, an open, happy grin. There’s already a small crowd gathering to gawk. “Why thank you, Miss Mars. Danger is my middle name.”

“Is it, really? Somehow that wouldn’t surprise me,” Veronica says, hiking her bag up on her shoulder. “Did you do it yourself, or did Weevil charge you extra?”

“Derek did it,” Stiles says. “Oh, had I mentioned that? Or did it come up in your Googling? He’s an artist. You should Google him, actually. His work is fantastic.” Ignoring the crowd, he starts scrolling through his phone until he pulls up one of Derek’s paintings of the pack in their wolf form, with Stiles snuggled up asleep amidst them.

Veronica leans over to look. “Wolves. Of course.” But she continues to study the picture and has to admit it’s pretty nice, at least from what she can see on a smartphone screen. It’s also pretty sweet, with Stiles curled up in amongst the wolves. She’s not sure what compels her to count them, but she does, and it’s the same number of people that had come to Neptune, not including Stiles’ father. “Why aren’t you a wolf?”

Stiles just gives her an innocent look and says, “Why would I be?” Then the warning bell rings and he says, “They’re playing our song. Meet me back here after school. It’s gonna be fantastic!”

“Oh, I wouldn’t miss it,” Veronica says. Why wouldn’t he be, her skinny white ass. She can see how Derek might get a kick out of painting wolves because of the crazy rumors, or how the rumors might feed off the fact that he paints wolves. If the pictures had just been wolves, that would have seemed totally reasonable. But why was it only Stiles who was human?

She taps away at her phone as she walks to class, Googling as recommended. It takes her less than two minutes to ascertain that Derek paints a lot of wolves, in varying numbers and poses and settings . . . but Stiles is always human.

“Whatcha thinkin’?” Wallace asks her.

“Why is he always in red?” she asks, shoving the phone in Wallace’s face.

Wallace blinks down at the picture. “Man, don’t ask me to explain art to you, Veronica. That’s not my gig.”

“And why is he always human?” Veronica scrolls a little more. Derek has done some other works, some of them not involving wolves or Stiles at all, but when he does appear, he’s always a human surrounded by wolves. “Why are artists weird?”

“It’s probably some metaphor thing,” Wallace says. “You know, like, Stiles is how he keeps in touch with his humanity, blah, blah, sentimental bullshit, blah.”

“Yeah. Maybe.” Veronica tucks the phone away. “He didn’t look like the sentimental sort. But I suppose he didn’t look like an artist either.”

Wallace just shrugs. Sleuthing is her department, the shrug seems to say. Veronica’s not sure why it bothers her so much. Apparently, that stupid website had lodged in her brain and set up camp there. She shrugs it off and concentrates on her schoolwork. Stiles is increasingly antsy through the day; whenever she sees him, he seems to be fidgeting even more. When the last bell rings, he practically leaps out of his seat, and she has to jog to keep up.

“What’s the hurry?” she calls after him. Then she thinks about who she’s talking to. He’s way too excited to go see what’s been done to his car. “What did you do?”

“Wait and see!” Stiles calls back. Veronica shakes her head and follows. Stiles rounds the Jeep, stops, and then pumps his fist. “Yes! That’s a fuckin’ gold mine!”

Veronica approaches and sees where the new words have been scratched into the door. ‘You’ll get yours, queer.’ Tasteful. “So it really was hate bait. But this won’t do you any good, even if the prints match. They aren’t in the system, remember?”

Stiles just whistles as he unlocks the door and flips up the sun visor. He extracts a small piece of equipment and waves it in Veronica’s face. “Smile,” he says. “You’re on Candid Camera!”

Veronica fans herself. “I hope you caught his good side.”

“Hm . . .” Stiles is playing with the device. “Nope. Just the top of his head. Oh well.” He reaches over and takes the side mirror out of its socket. There’s another camera hidden behind it. “This one probably worked better . . .”

“I love it when you whip out your toys.” Veronica just can’t contain herself. “It’s so hot.”

“See? I told you we were soulmates.” Stiles holds out the camera. “Do you know this sterling sample of humanity?”

“Tad Duvall. I’d spit, but I might hit your Jeep.” Veronica’s not at all surprised. “I’d have a story or two to tell you about him, but there are a couple decent people who haven’t had their reputations undeservedly tarnished in front of you, and they deserve at least a few people looking at them without knowing their dirty laundry.”

“So you don’t like him,” Stiles surmises, a little smile quirking at the edge of his lips.

“He’s scum.” Veronica doesn’t actually say that about people easily. “There are a lot of people here that I can’t stand for a lot of reasons. Because they’re snotty, or two-faced, or think that because they have money that makes them better, but that just makes them assholes. But there are a few people . . .” She shakes her head. “Tad Duvall is scum.” The sort of person who did what he had done to Carmen, that was the sort of person that moves on to doing it to girlfriend after girlfriend, doing it to his wife and to his kids. Or someday he would follow through with the most likely empty threat he had left on Stiles’ car.

“Cool,” Stiles says. “I’d hate to see a nice guy get arrested for . . .” He counts off on his fingers. “Two counts of vandalism and one count of criminal threatening, all with a lovely patina of hate crime. I’mma call my dad to go pick him up.”

“You want to know the best part?” Veronica asks, smiling.

“I absolutely want to know the best part,” Stiles says.

“Tad wants to join the Air Force.”

Stiles whoops with laughter. “I’m pretty sure they frown on felony convictions,” he says cheerfully.

“It’s like Christmas!” Veronica does a happy bounce. “Should I call Weevil for you? Or are you going to leave it like a badge of honor?”

“For now, it’ll be evidence,” Stiles says. “Gotta get pictures and paint samples and all that jazz. Work to do. I’ll catch up with you later – you work tonight, right? I’ll stop by Java the Hut after I’m done at the station.”

“Yup! Have fun destroying people!”

“I always do!”

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

Stiles is sitting on one of the desks at the police station, chatting with Leo while one of the officers processes Tad and gets his fingerprints, when the door bangs open and a well-dressed woman wearing too much perfume barges in. “I demand to speak to the sheriff!” she shouts. Stiles is annoyed at the interruption. Leo’s been telling him all about how his father gave the officers a kickass lecture on what constitutes a crime and how to do their job, regardless of the race, age, sexual orientation, or class status of the person reporting said crime. ‘I may not be able to fire you,’ Sheriff Stilinski told them, ‘but I can sure as hell assign you to inventory, desk duty, or toilet scrubbing. If you want to keep your jobs, then _do_ your jobs.’ Stiles wishes that he had gotten it on film. It sounds like it was spectacular. Leo is pretty sure that he’ll have his chance, since the lecture will undoubtedly need to be given more than once.

Leo gets to his feet as the woman slams the door behind her. “What’s wrong, ma’m?”

“Half an hour ago, someone showed up at my house and arrested my son like he was some, some common criminal!” the woman rants. “I’ll have his badge for this! I don’t have time for flunkies. You’ll bring the sheriff out here and release my son right this instant!”

“Ma’am, the term you’re looking for is ‘deputy’. It’s much more appropriate than ‘flunky’,” Leo says. His tone is polite, thought it somehow also makes it clear that he’s about to roll his eyes all the way into the next county. “If you could give me your son’s name, I’ll be happy to see if Sheriff Stilinski is available to speak with you.” Stiles knows that Leo knows damned well who she’s talking about, because they’ve only arrested one person that day, but he suspects that this is going to be hilarious.

She glares daggers at him. “It’s Tad Duvall. I want him released. Now!”

Leo doesn’t respond to that. The charges against Tad are not going to be dropped any time soon, but there’s no point in putting himself in the line of fire. “I’ll see if the sheriff’s available,” he says, and disappears around the corner. He comes back a few moments later with the man in tow.

“Deputy D’Amato said you wanted to speak with me, ma’m?” Stilinski says, stopping behind the desk at a polite distance.

“What I _want_ ,” she says, her nose in the air, “is for you to explain to me why you’ve dragged my son down here on some nonsense charge!”

“Well, it isn’t nonsense, so your son is in a bit of legal trouble,” Stilinski says, his tone suggesting that his ideas on the topic are about as flexible as a block of granite.

“I want him released! Right now! I’ll call the press, I’ll call my lawyer – you have no idea who I am, do you? This will be your job!”

Sheriff Stilinski leans his hip against a nearby desk, crosses his arms, and settles in. It looks like this is going to take a while. “I don’t care that you want him released. He broke the law. I have the right to hold him and I’m going to exercise it. You may feel free to call the press and your lawyer – in fact, I recommend that you call your lawyer – if it makes you feel better. I will be happy to tell the press that your son is being held for perpetrating a hate crime. Twice. Against the same victim. As to who you are, I can only assume that you’re Mr. Duvall’s mother, and I can assure you that my job is secure.”

Mrs. Duvall gapes at him for a long moment before shouting, “I’m calling my lawyer!” and storming out of the station.

“Excellent,” Stilinski says, as he straightens.

“We should get this on video,” Leo says, shaking his head in some amusement.

“I suppose it would be bad form to question him when his mother has said they’re calling his lawyer,” Stiles pipes up, “even though he’s eighteen and so technically _he’s_ the one who should be asking for a lawyer.”

“Yeah,” Stilinski agrees. “Besides, he was so shocked that we actually hauled him in that leaving him to stew will work just as well. Mommy dearest is calling the lawyer for all the wrong reasons. She thinks the lawyer is going to lay into _me_.” He shakes his head a little. “Boy, is she going to be upset when she realizes this isn’t going to go her way. Do we own any ear plugs?”

“Would you be surprised if I said yes?” Stiles asks.

“Kid, very little you say surprises me anymore.” The sheriff turns to Leo. “So when Lamb was in charge, would that stunt have worked?”

Leo shrugs. “Believe it or not, I don’t know? ‘Cause when Lamb was in charge, he wouldn’t have gotten dragged in at all. I mean, if the offended party had been another rich kid, maybe, but . . . even then, he probably would’ve gone to the family’s house, told them what was going on, and let them hash it out with untold sums of money.”

“And that’s part of why we’re here right now,” he says. “Because everyone thinks this sort of behavior is acceptable if you have enough money.” He scratches at his eyebrow. “I’m going to piss off a lot of people before I’m done, aren’t I.”

“Yup,” Leo says, “and I’m really looking forward to it.”

Stiles fishes out the ear plugs, which he keeps around because sometimes Derek likes to hang out in the kitchen and draw but the sound of the food processor or the blender irritates him. Then he sits down with his homework and waits. The lawyer shows up about twenty minutes later and comes in with Mrs. Duvall, who now looks unbearably smug. The lawyer has a thin face and a handshake like a limp fish. “Steven Costello,” he introduces himself.

“Tom Stilinski,” the man says in reply, although he’s sure the lawyer has been told all about him. “What did you want to discuss first?”

“Well, I’d like to know by what rights you’re holding my client,” the lawyer says, his nose in the air.

“Vandalism is a crime, Mr. Costello. One that Mr. Duvall committed not once but twice. Ms. Duvall – ” He pauses, then turns to Tad’s mother and says in a tone of utmost politeness, “I’m sorry, may I call you that, or should I be using a different name?”

She sniffs. “It’s _Mrs._ Duvall,” she says, as if to suggest that only plebes get divorced.

“Mrs. Duvall has explained, I’m sure?” Stilinski says to Costello. “I suppose I should ask what’s been explained to you.”

Costello heaves a sigh. “That her son was dragged down here for accidentally scratching another student’s car, yes. I don’t see how that’s – ”

“No.” The sheriff makes a sharp slashing motion with one hand, firmly cutting off this entire line of thought. “Her son has been _arrested_ for purposefully vandalizing another student’s vehicle, not once but twice, with language that makes it a hate crime both times.”

A faint frown crosses Costello’s face. “That’s certainly a serious accusation. Perhaps we should – ”

“Oh, for pity’s sake!” Mrs. Duvall interrupted. “Teenagers do this sort of thing all the time. It’s not _serious_. What do we pay you for? If he’s arrested, get him _un_ arrested!”

“Are you suggesting that a hate crime isn’t serious, ma’m?” Stilinski pulls himself up to his full height.

“Don’t be ridiculous! Anything can pass for a hate crime these days. ‘Oh, he did it because he was gay’,” she says, taking on a whining tone. “ ‘Oh, they targeted him because he was black.’ _If_ my son vandalized another student’s car – which I seriously doubt – it had _nothing_ to do with any, any preconceived notions that _other_ students had about him.”

Stiles steps between the two of them and slaps down the photograph of his car after the first time it had been keyed. He looks her dead in the eye and says, “Keep talking, Mrs. Duvall. This is getting interesting.”

“What that says, in case you can’t read it,” Stilinski says, his tone even despite the fact that what he really wants to do is take his son and bundle him away from this awful woman and her hateful son, “is ‘go home fag’.” He’s informing the lawyer more than the mother, since it’s becoming clear that he’s the one with common sense. “I think that makes things fairly clear.”

Costello clears his throat. “Perhaps we should take this into a more private setting?” he suggests. “I’d like to have a word with my client.”

“By all means.” He leads them to an interrogation room where Tad has been left to cool his heels. Costello is waved in and Stilinski follows close behind. Stiles will have to wait outside, though his father knows he’ll be watching through the mirror.

Mrs. Duvall gasps in faux horror as soon as she sees the ink on her son’s hands. She turns to Costello and barks out, “Do you see that? They fingerprinted him like a common criminal!”

Stilinski doesn’t even bother to comment to that. Costello tries to calmly inform her that they do indeed have the right to do so, and eventually manages to get her into the chair. “Now, if I may ask, what makes you think that my client is responsible for the vandalism?”

“The perpetrator left a clear set of fingerprints with the first act of vandalism,” Sheriff Stilinski says, taking a seat on the opposite side of the table. “They didn’t match any in the system, so we were, relatively speaking, at a dead end. Then he left another set of prints with the second act.” He takes out an evidence bag with a photograph of the second time the car had been keyed. “I’m aware that while the evidence doesn’t look good, it could be viewed as circumstantial. However, the victim didn’t take the damage to his car lightly and installed a small camera. So we have Mr. Duvall on film committing the second act of vandalism. That, along with the prints, gives us a fairly solid case.”

“That little fairy has this on _film_?” Tad bursts out, and Costello quickly shushes him, although he looks like he’d really rather just excuse himself from the case and walk off into the sunset.

Sheriff Stilinski smiles. “Yes, the young man does have it on film. From two separate angles. And now we have what you just said on film. Would you care to sign a confession?”

“Let’s . . . not rush into anything,” Costello says quickly. “I’d like to view the films, if possible, and then discuss – ”

“This is ludicrous!” Mrs. Duvall bursts out. “Fine, if there was damage to the car, we’ll pay to have it repaired. Now, my son and I are leaving.”

“No, that’s not how this works,” Stilinski states, as if talking to a three year old. “This cannot be solved with money. The victim has already stated that, should you offer money, he does not wish to drop the charges. So no, Mr. Duvall is not leaving. You may go if you wish.” He turns to Costello. “Do you want to view the film in here with your client or in private?”

“Er . . . in here would be fine,” Costello says, somewhat uncertain.

Mrs. Duvall starts swelling up like Aunt Marge in Harry Potter. “What is wrong with you?” she shouts. “Do something about this! What do I pay you for?”

Costello clears his throat and says, “Mrs. Duvall, this is very serious. The language used, the, the threatening nature of the second message, it – it could easily turn this from a misdemeanor to a felony. We’re talking about jail time.”

“Jail . . .” Her jaw simply sags open. “He can’t be convicted of a crime! He’s going into the Air Force!”

“Sometimes there are consequences for our actions, Mrs. Duvall.” Stilinski stands up. “I’ll go get the film. Be right back.”

He closes the door behind himself and sees Stiles grinning happily at him. “This is awesome!” Stiles says.

Stilinski slings an arm around his son’s shoulders with a smile, glad that he’s enjoying this. It would be so easy for Stiles to be upset, but instead he seems to find it funny. Although he supposes, after the life his son has led, a homophobic teenager probably doesn’t merit a lot of notice. “The Air Force. Good God.” He shakes his head as he moves them back down the hallway so he can get one of the station’s laptops and the CDs with the recordings out of evidence.

“You know, I bet his keys still have flecks of paint on them,” Stiles says thoughtfully. “Want me to get Leo to put them in evidence, too? That’d really drive home that he’s not going anywhere for a while.”

“That is an excellent idea. You terrify me. Keep it up.”

By the time Stilinski gets back into the room, Mrs. Duvall seems to have accepted that screaming is not going to get her son out of this. She turns to the sheriff and says, in a tone that’s moderately more reasonable, “Sheriff Stilinski, I know that you haven’t been in Neptune very long. So maybe you’re not . . . familiar . . . with how things are done around here. So I will put this plainly. What do I have to do to make this go away?”

Stilinski’s eyebrows climb. “I’d suggest bending the laws of physics, going back in time to before it happened, and raising your son with some better morals.” He sets down the laptop, opens it up, and queues up the videos.

Since she’s sitting there with her jaw ajar, Costello says, “Mrs. Duvall, I think you’d better go. This may take a while, and . . .” She’s treading dangerously close to bribing an official, and it’s becoming increasingly clear that Sheriff Stilinski wouldn’t hesitate to charge her for it.

Stilinski says nothing, knowing that if he opens his mouth, it’ll only ruffle her feathers and he wants her gone. The kid has practically hanged himself anyway, and he’d like to get things over with.

“Fine,” she snaps. “Fine! But this isn’t over! My husband is friends with Judge Calloway. These ridiculous charges will be dismissed by nine AM tomorrow; you see if they’re not!”

“Noted,” Stilinski says, although what he’s really noting is that if Tad is stupid enough to force this to a trial, they’ll have to make sure that’s not the judge. Once she’s stormed out, he shifts to a seat closer to Costello, bringing the laptop with him. “There are two videos. Different angles. Just hit play whenever you’re ready.”

Costello views them in silence. There isn’t much beyond the top of Tad’s head visible in the first video, but the second has caught him beautifully. Not only is his face visible, but it’s clear what he’s doing. When the video ends, Costello clears his throat and says, “I’d like a little time alone with my client.”

“Sure,” Stilinski says. He stands and leaves the room.

“Hey, guess what!” Stiles greets him. “Mrs. Duvall just offered me five thousand bucks if I agree to drop charges!”

“Stiles, please tell me that you were being yourself with avengeance,” his father says. He would absolutely love to nail the woman with witness tampering.

“Oh, I didn’t need to,” Stiles says, laughing. “She did it right in front of Leo. He’s got her in holding already.”

Stilinski just starts laughing as well. “I suppose I should go notify her poor sap of a lawyer. And maybe offer him the ear plugs.”

Stiles slaps his father on the shoulder. “You have fun with that. I have a date with Veronica at the Java Hut. I promised I’d let her know how it went.” He jogs out of the room to where Derek’s picking him up. The Jeep, of course, is being repaired . . . again. The Camaro is in pristine condition, though, and they zoom through the streets of Neptune to the Java Hut, where Veronica is working. It’s fairly empty, being a weekday afternoon, and the ‘please seat yourself’ sign is up. Stiles picks a table in the back so Derek can sit in the bench along the wall and Stiles can arrange himself in Derek’s lap.

Derek lets him, wrapping an arm around his waist. “Now you’re just baiting people.” He says the words quietly as he presses his nose into Stiles’ shoulder. If baiting people amuses Stiles, he may as well help.

Veronica glances over as they gets settled and waves to let them know that she’ll be over in a minute. If she wants to have time to socialize, she has to make sure everyone else is taken care of. She does a quick check on her other tables and then saunters over to Stiles and Derek. “What can I get you gentlemen?”

“Hot chocolate with whipped cream,” Stiles says. He’s had enough caffeine for the day, which is something of a minor miracle, but he downed three Red Bulls before the police brought Tad in and they’re still working through his system.

“Black coffee,” Derek tells her. Like always, he takes his coffee as dark and bitter as he wants everyone to think he is.

“He’s just a ray of sunshine, isn’t he,” Veronica says, privately amused by Derek’s sour attitude, which is in direct contradiction to the smiling boy in his lap.

“Always,” Stiles says cheerfully. “He and Logan should have a contest to see who’s better at brooding.”

“Logan wouldn’t make it,” Veronica says. “He can’t resist a witty retort. I’ll be right back with your drinks,” she adds, and leaves them to themselves a few minutes. Derek is doodling on a napkin when she comes back, a little picture of Stiles standing triumphant on top of his Jeep. “So?” Veronica says. “How’d it go?”

“Oh my _God_ ,” Stiles says. “It was _awesome_.”

Veronica pulls the chair on the other side of the table out. “Spill! Start with the highlights. We’ll go back for details later. I love a good ruining.”

“Oh, he is so ruined. He wants to be in the Air Force and having this on his record pretty much fucks that,” Stiles says. “Got him on film from two separate angles, _and_ there was paint on his keys. That with the fingerprints? We’ve totally nailed him.”

Veronica actually claps in glee. “This is seriously the best. You have _no_ idea what a spooge Tad is.”

“Oh, it gets better!” Stiles says. “Because as soon as my dad mentioned the film, Tad’s response was ‘wait, that fucking fairy has it on tape’? In the interrogation room! With the sheriff! He basically admitted he did it.”

“You’re lying,” Veronica says, as Derek leans around Stiles to sip his coffee. “You have to be. No one can be that stupid and live.”

“You should’ve seen his poor lawyer having apoplexy,” Stiles says, chortling and wiping whipped cream off his lip.

“He should have just quit. How long did it take one of them to try to buy you off?” Veronica’s practically bouncing in her seat at this point. She can’t remember the last time she was so excited. “In Neptune, they always have to try to buy you off.”

“Well, Tad’s mom was subtly hinting at it from the beginning. I think she figured my dad would just cave and let her kid go because she’s so ‘important’.” Stiles makes air quotes and then slurps up some of his hot chocolate. “Then I think she thought he was playing dumb, so she asked point blank what she should do to make it go away. To which my dad . . .” Stiles starts laughing; he can’t help it. “Told her to go back in time and raise her son better.”

Derek makes a funny noise and carefully sets his mug down. There’s another noise like a muffled snort and he looks away, towards the wall. Then he just loses it, wrapping both arms around Stiles and burying the laughter in his shoulder. “I’m okay,” he says, still chuckling.

Veronica’s jaw has come slightly unhinged. “I think your father may be my hero.”

“My dad does not take shit from _anyone_ , ever, period, end of story,” Stiles says. “It’s like . . . a defining point of his character. And so the lawyer is trying to explain to the woman that no, really, this is serious, this could actually be a felony with jail time and stuff. Geez. Does it make me weird that I’m actually glad he chose ‘you’ll get yours’ instead of a slightly more innocuous ‘go to hell’ or something like that?”

“Yes?” Veronica guesses. “But I’m right there with you. Does it make me a bad person that I agree with you because now he’s really screwed?”

“Probably only a little,” Stiles says. “Anyway, this woman who just does _not_ get it then asks me if I’d be willing to drop the charges for five thousand dollars.”

Derek nearly loses it again, but pulls himself together. Veronica rubs a hand over her face. “She asked you that. At the sheriff’s department. While her son was in custody. Does she look like she’s been repeatedly dropped on her head, by any chance?”

“Maybe all the Botox has gone to her brain,” Stiles says, snickering. “I told her that I might not look it, but probably had just as much money as her, and she would have to do a _lot_ better than that. So she offered to buy me a new car. Right about then is when Leo arrested her for witness tampering.”

“She what?” Derek asks, clearly incensed. He shakes his head. “This place.”

“She honestly thought you’d take anything, let alone a new car? She should have at least tried for something you might want.”

“I’m pretty sure this woman has been told she can have anything she wants her whole life.” Stiles laughs. “You should’ve seen her when they got her in the room and she was going off about how we’d fingerprinted her kid like some ‘common criminal’. I was like, ‘what, would you rather he be an uncommon criminal, like a serial killer or something?’”

Veronica gives another snort of laughter. “We are way too cheerful about this. Where have you been all my life?”

“Pining away without even realizing it,” Stiles agrees. “Sooooo, Tad is getting nailed on two counts of vandalism and one count of criminal threatening, all of which with a lovely hate crime edge.” He lifts his cocoa and toasts her. “And I will be bringing Jack to school with me from now on because my dad is afraid Tad’s homophobe friends will decide to carry out his threats.”

“He will be one hell of a deterrent,” Veronica agrees with a nod. “I mean, I know service dogs have even temperaments, but he’s pretty scary looking. And this is coming from a girl who cuddles up at night with a pit bull named Backup, who’s been trained to attack on command.”

“Nice,” Stiles says. “I’m not really worried about it, but hey, if it makes my dad feel better . . . to be honest, I prefer him with me anyway. I just didn’t want to start a fuss here.”

“But now you do?”

“I want to start _all_ the fuss,” Stiles says with a smirk.

Veronica shakes her head a little and says, “I feel like I’m really going to enjoy this semester.”

 

~ ~ ~ ~


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter notes. Plot! Yay, plot! I would like to issue a general reminder to all of you lovely people not to post Veronica Mars spoilers in the comments, as not everyone reading has scene Veronica Mars.
> 
> Despite the fact that I know like three people named Peter in real life, it's always awkward to have two people with the same name in fiction. Alas, it's unavoidable sometimes when you mash fandoms, so yeah, sorry about that. Stiles finds it weird too.
> 
> Last but not least: I have to credit the idea of Stiles using his lacrosse stick as a portable weapon to Etharei, who wrote the quintessential BAMF!Stiles fic, [Hide of a Life War](http://archiveofourown.org/works/546446). Because it is awesome.

 

It’s been about two weeks since the pack’s arrival in Neptune, and Stiles decides that they should go back to Beacon Hills for the weekend. He needs a break, and he can get the Jeep repainted while he’s there, now that it’s been fixed (again). It’s strange, because he hadn’t thought of Beacon Hills being a really forward-thinking sort of place. The rampant homophobia (a word he hates, because fear has nothing to do with it) in Neptune has taken him off guard.

“You know that Beacon Hills could’ve been like that, too,” Danny says, as they’ve stopped halfway to grab lunch. “I mean . . . I didn’t worry too much about what my parents thought, but I figured I’d be crucified at school. That’s why I stopped hanging out with Jackson in eighth grade, until he told me to stop being an idiot.”

“And since Jackson basically told everyone who wanted to be anyone that if he heard a single one of them talk shit about Danny, he’d end their social lives forever,” Lydia continues, “that pretty much settled it.”

“So it’s Jackson’s fault that we weren’t prepared for these assholes,” Stiles says, and shakes his head. “Man, everything is Jackson’s fault.”

Danny laughs and gives Stiles a shove against his shoulder. Stiles just grins at him in response.

“When we were fourteen,” Danny says, “I asked Jackson ‘aren’t you afraid I wanna fuck you?’ And Jackson said, without missing a beat, ‘No, you wanna fuck Viggo Mortensen,’ and then we never talked about it again.”

The three girls let out dreamy sighs.

Stiles gives Erica a playful elbow and says, “Don’t you have enough men in your life? How are things with Weevil?”

“Hot,” she says, giving him a thumbs-up.

“And cue the end that any of us want to hear about this,” Boyd says. Erica just gives him a saucy grin and a kiss on the cheek. Stiles laughs and shakes his head. He and Erica’s relationship is both casual and serious. He doesn’t care who she sleeps with outside the pack, but inside the pack, she belongs to him. He can’t exactly articulate why the idea of her having sex with Boyd or Isaac bothers him and the idea of her having sex with Weevil doesn’t, but it is what it is.

They split up during the day. Stiles and Isaac go with Scott to hang out at his house, and Derek has decided to get some things from the house and his studio that he hadn’t thought to bring the first trip. The others are all at their respective houses. The drive is much too long to make twice in one day, so they stay the weekend, placating their families and talking about how weird a place Neptune is, before leaving mid-morning on Sunday.

Sheriff Stilinski isn’t there when they get back, but it’s not unusual for him to work on Sunday, given how much work he’s had to do lately. Stiles sets to with some of the things he brought back from Beacon Hills and starts making blueberry muffins, his father’s favorite. But when Sheriff Stilinski gets home several hours later, he’s in no mood for muffins.

“What’s up?” Stiles asks, seeing the worry lines around his mouth and the anger in his forehead.

Sheriff Stilinski lets out a breath and sinks into a chair. “There’s been a murder. A boy in your high school.”

“Oh, geez,” Stiles says. “Who was it? Any idea what happened?”

“A boy named Peter Ferrer.” Stilinski says. “Did you know him?”

Stiles rubs both hands over his face. “To be honest, I’ve met so many people over the past two weeks, I’ve forgotten half of them. It doesn’t ring a bell.”

“Well, try this on for size,” Stilinski says, his tone somewhat grim. “Until we came to town, he was the only ‘out’ gay kid at school.”

“Oh, shit!” Stiles says, eyes widening. “Yeah, I’ve met him a couple times. We had a good laugh over Tad Duvall getting arrested after he fucked with my car. He seemed nice. Maybe a little . . . flamboyant for my taste. Not that that’s a bad thing, I mean, people should do whatever they want, it’s just not my style, and I’m babbling, aren’t I, any idea what – who killed him?”

Stilinski shakes his head a little over Stiles’ correction of his words, his automatic, instinctive assumption that a supernatural creature killed Peter when murders are perpetrated by humans every day. “Not sure yet. Body was found at his home by the parents early this morning. They’d been out late at a social gathering and decided to get a room at the Grand rather than go home because they’d had too much to drink. Their alibis are totally solid.”

“Forced entry?” Derek asks, leaning his elbows against the marble counter.

“No. Back door was ajar. According to dad, Peter left the back door unlocked if he was expecting . . . company.”

“Because his boyfriend wouldn’t come and go through the front,” Stiles says. “Not in this town.”

“Well, if his boyfriend did come over last night, he might be the one who did it,” Stilinski says. “Or he might have found the body, freaked out, and run away. No real way to tell which yet. Parents have no idea who he was seeing. They, quote, ‘didn’t talk’ about his sexuality.”

“But this is a crime committed by a person,” Derek says. “You’re sure?”

“Cause of death was blunt force trauma,” Stilinski says, “so hardly anyone or anything is ruled out. Peter was pretty small, so it wouldn’t have been hard to throw him around. Or he could have been beaten with a bat or some other weapon, although we didn’t find one at the scene. There were a few knife wounds, as well. Or at least wounds that looked like they were made by a knife.”

“It’s so weird talking about a guy named Peter,” Stiles mutters.

“Look,” Stilinski says, reaching out and putting a hand on his shoulder, “I don’t want you involved in this, okay? As far as we know, this is just a garden variety crime. But it’s a pretty gruesome one.” He sees Stiles open his mouth and says, “I promise that if I get the faintest hint that something supernatural was involved, I’ll bring it to you straight away. But until then . . .”

The rest of the pack is quiet. It’s Danny who finally looks up and says, “Is it because he was gay?”

Stilinski hesitates. “That’s another possibility we’re looking into. Your friend Tad has an airtight alibi – he was doing his community service hours. But there are plenty of other homophobic assholes in this town. If they’re upset about Tad getting caught and sentenced for what he did . . .”

“Then they’d come after _me_ ,” Stiles says.

“Maybe. But you were out of town, so maybe they decided to go after an available target.” Stilinski gives his shoulder a squeeze and then says to Danny, “If that’s what happened, I’ll find out. And whoever did it will be brought to justice. Okay?”

Danny lets out a breath. “Yeah, I . . . okay.”

“Do you want me to ask around school? See if anyone knows who Peter’s boyfriend may have been?” Stiles asks.

Stilinski thinks about it. “Okay. But be discreet. You could be targeted. And I trust you to take care of yourself – I really do – but try not to draw attention to yourself.”

“I’ll ask Veronica,” Stiles says. “She knows how to play her cards close to the vest.”

Stilinski shakes his head. “I still can’t believe that out of all the people in this city, you have to go and make friends with the one person who _actually_ has the intelligence and perseverance to figure out your little secret.”

“Yeah, I know, Dad, but . . .”

“I know,” Stilinski says, with a sigh. “She understands what it’s like. Okay. And if it helps me find out who murdered this kid, I can’t argue with that.”

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

Veronica hears about the murder before Stiles does, but only because her father still makes a habit of listening to the police radio despite his best attempts not to. They don’t talk much about it. Veronica barely knew Peter, and can’t immediately place him, so she doesn’t have much of an opinion on it. But it does make her think about the call they got to Lilly’s house the previous year.

“You okay?” her father asks her, as she listlessly stirs her spaghetti.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” she says, somewhat absently. It had been a long week anyway. In addition to all the excitement at school with Tad Duvall, she had been working a case that had gotten far more complicated than it had any right to be. A simple ‘let’s find out if Cassidy’s stepmother is cheating on his father’ had turned into ‘let’s deconstruct Cassidy’s father’s real estate scam’. She’s pretty sure nobody had gone home happy after that one. The Casablancas’ father had left the country in a hurry, although she supposes his presence hadn’t added much to Dick and Cassidy’s lives. Dick doesn’t seem to care at all, and Cassidy just wanders around looking as vaguely confused and upset as he always does.

“Look, I don’t want you involved in this,” Keith says. “We have a real sheriff now. He seems like the kind of guy who can get the job done. So you stay out of it.”

“Check,” Veronica says. “No plans on getting involved.”

Her father gives her a suspicious look, but lets it go. She’s got no personal stake in this crime, so until she’s asked to help, she may actually listen to him.

School the next day, however, is terrible. Flat out terrible. Some of the people who knew Peter are in mourning, and there’s a moment of silence during home room. But vicious rumors are already going around. One is that Peter’s boyfriend had beaten him to death, but the far more prevalent is that Peter ‘got what he deserved’ for flaunting his sexuality.

After a great deal of advice from his lawyer and a great deal of squawking from his mother, Tad Duvall had entered into a plea bargain. He had pled guilty to two counts of vandalism and one of threatening and intimidation, and in return for the guilty plea, they had kept everything as a misdemeanor. He got sixty hours of community service and thirty days in jail, suspended, and now he’s on probation. It may or may not stop him from entering the Air Force, but it certainly hurts his chances.

Veronica almost walks right up to Tad and asks, ‘so where were you when Peter was killed?’ but at the last minute thinks better of the idea. Tad is such an obvious suspect that even Lamb would have been sure to question him. She recalls her promise to her father and tries to focus on her history class.

But she’s not surprised when Stiles walks up to her just before study hall with Derek trailing behind on his leash, and says, “Got a sec?”

“Step into my office,” she says, ushering him into the girls’ bathroom and blocking the door. She does a quick stall check. “What’s up?”

“My dad asked me to _discreetly_ ask a few questions about Peter, since his parents are largely clueless about his social life,” Stiles says. He leans against the sink and Derek settles down at his feet. “I figured you were my best bet. Did he have a boyfriend?”

Veronica lets out a breath. “Not that I knew of, no. But . . . I didn’t really travel in those circles. Not because of any problem with it, but . . .”

“He was part of a tight clique,” Stiles says.

“Peter was one of those people that was friendly with everyone but not really _friends_ with anyone,” Veronica says. “If he had a boyfriend here, it was someone in the closet.” She frowns slightly. “What makes you think he did?”

Stiles purses his lips for a moment. “You’ll keep this confidential, presumably?”

“Hey, I know the drill,” Veronica says. Stiles looks unimpressed, so she says, “Yes, I understand that we have a real sheriff in charge now, I’m not a deputy, and I will not tell anyone details about the case.”

Stiles nods. “The back door of the house was unlocked. Peter’s dad said he leaves it unlocked when he is, quote, expecting company. But that they don’t know who it might have been because they didn’t talk about that stuff.”

Veronica considers this for a moment. “In which case that might just be an assumption he’s making,” she says.

“Yeah,” Stiles agrees. “The back door might have been unlocked just because Peter had forgotten to lock it. Or because he was taking out the trash. Or because it was a nice night. But if someone was expected at the house, they may have found the body and skipped out . . . or made the body in the first place.”

Veronica heaves a sigh. “My honest opinion? Peter wasn’t dating anyone at Neptune High. He wouldn’t have dated anyone in the closet. He was too . . . out there, for that. He would’ve wanted someone he could hold hands with and kiss in the hallways to drive the bigots crazy.” She can’t help asking. “Tad Duvall’s been ruled out?”

“Airtight alibi, doing his community service,” Stiles says. “My dad is rounding up his friends for questioning, but unless he finds something really compelling or someone says something really stupid, he won’t have enough to demand fingerprints or a search warrant or anything like that.”

“Great,” Veronica says. “So we’re back at square one.”

Stiles gives a little shrug. “Give my dad some time. He’s good at what he does, you know. And just . . . keep your ear to the ground. If it was some homophobic asshole, I wouldn’t put it past them to start bragging about it.”

“Fair enough,” Veronica says. She gives him a look up and down. “You okay?”

“Yeah, I don’t . . .” Stiles shrugs again. “It’s pretty terrible, but . . . I didn’t know the guy. And I don’t worry about myself.” He reaches down and scratches ‘Jack’ behind the ears. “I’m safe as houses with this guy looking after me.”

Veronica can’t help but smile. “Can’t argue with that,” she says. The bell rings. “Crap, we’re late. Better run.”

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

It takes three weeks from the first homophobic slur for Stiles to finally lose his temper, and later everyone will agree that this is about two and a half weeks longer than they thought it would take. But finally, he’s walking to class, minding his own business, when he hears a giggle and when he turns, he sees some jock talking to his girlfriend. “What did you just say?” Stiles demands.

“I wasn’t talking to you, queer,” the jock says.

“You just said to your girlfriend there that you wonder how many cocks I can suck in a night before I get sick,” Stiles says.

“Yeah,” the guy replies, too stupid to realize that a normal human wouldn’t have been able to hear him. “So what? You wanna give me an answer?”

“You seem awfully curious about the consequences of cocksucking,” Stiles tells him. “Wanna give it a try? I’ve got ten inches just for you.”

The jock lurches forward, but he doesn’t quite dare get in Stiles’ face, not with ‘Jack’ between the two of them. Derek isn’t doing anything even remotely threatening, but his size alone makes him a powerful deterrent. “Are you calling me queer?” the jock demands. “I’ll kick your ass, you little fairy!”

“You know what? Okay,” Stiles says. “Let’s do this. Cove Beach. Ten o’clock. Hell, bring your friends. Make it a party. We’ll see who ends up on their knees.”

“You’re gonna end up in _pieces_ , you fag!” he shouts as Stiles starts down the hallway again.

Veronica runs to catch up with him, having witnessed all of this from the doorway of her classroom. “Are you _insane_?” she demands. “Bring your friends? Seriously? Why are you looking to get the shit kicked out of you?”

Stiles gives her a sideways glance and then an even more sideways smile. “Ten o’clock,” he says. “Bring your camera. I’m going to be the next Neptune YouTube sensation.”

He continues walking, leaving her standing there with her jaw ajar. It takes her a minute to gather herself enough to go to class. Logan sees the look on her face and asks what’s wrong. When she tells him what she just witnessed, Logan says, “Oh, that explains why Stiles was asking me where I had filmed that bum fight last year.”

“Not your finest moment,” Veronica says, and Logan just shrugs. She shakes her head at him and tries to focus on her class work. But she can’t help but worry. Not with everything that’s been going on lately. She rushes through her homework after school and then reports to her shift at the Java Hut. She develops a fake cough about an hour in and despite her frequent insistence that she’s fine, really, her manager sends her home at eight o’clock, two hours before her shift is scheduled to end.

She thinks about telling her dad what’s going to happen – or calling Stiles’ father and telling _him_ that his son is courting death via homophobic assholes – but can’t quite bring herself to do it. She packs up her camera and heads down to the beach at nine thirty.

Enough people heard Stiles’ challenge that the rumor has spread far and wide, and there’s a huge crowd. Stiles is already there, tossing around a lacrosse ball with Scott and Isaac. He wields the stick with a surprising amount of grace. On a set of benches that have been set up next to the bonfire, the rest of his friends are chatting. Derek is there, wearing a black leather jacket, his face serious but not angry or worried. Just blank.

Stiles, Veronica realizes abruptly, is dressed in the same red hoodie that shows up in so many of Derek’s paintings. She can’t quite figure out why that feels so significant to her, but it does.

Veronica sets up her camera, despite deep misgivings about the entire situation. The audience has only made her more nervous. She can’t think of any way this won’t end in disaster. The only reason she isn’t already on the phone with the cops is because Stiles’ friends seem so relaxed, even a little amused. Scott and Isaac are just goofing off with their lacrosse sticks. Lydia is examining her nails for chips in the paint. Boyd is doing homework. Danny is sitting with Mac, and they’re both poking at a laptop. Cassidy is sitting with them, one hand laced through Mac’s while the other taps nervously at the table. Erica is – why does this not surprise Veronica? – sitting in Weevil’s lap, his arm around her waist. Allison is playing with her phone, but occasionally looking up and cheering Scott on in their game. Derek just watches Stiles with studied intensity.

While some of the people there just seem excited, there’s an ugly current running through the crowd. Stiles is bucking the way things work in Neptune, and even the people who aren’t homophobic seem to want to see him get his ass kicked. Veronica is glad that Logan’s there, a silent reassurance behind her, and Weevil, too. Wallace is pulling a late shift at the Sack’n’Pack.

At two minutes before ten o’clock, Scott and Isaac go sit down with the rest of their crowd. Stiles walks around, drawing a large circle in the sand with his lacrosse stick. “Can I ask y’all to respect the ring?” he says, with a smile. Some people laugh. A lot of people don’t.

Then the jock that Stiles insulted walks out of the crowd and into the circle. Veronica knows him vaguely, by reputation. His name is Travis. He’s on the football team, and approaches now with three other guys that are also on it. All of them are taller than Stiles, and all but one have broader shoulders. They look like they could bench press him. Veronica swallows and hits record on her camera as they step into the ‘ring’.

“Come on, four on one, are you serious?” Meg says from the crowd.

“Shut up, bitch,” Travis says. “He said to bring friends.”

Now Stiles looks a little uncertain. He takes a step back as if he hadn’t quite expected them to take him seriously. “I didn’t mean . . .”

“You gonna chicken out, fag?” Travis asks, grinning, an ugly grin.

Stiles glances down at the end of his lacrosse stick and casually leans it into the sand and steps on it with his right foot. The end of it snaps off, so quickly and cleanly that it must be designed to do that. Veronica realizes it’s not really a lacrosse stick. It’s a weapon disguised as one. A weapon he can carry at school or to the beach or anywhere he goes, really. From the way he handles it, she’s guessing it’s heavier than a regular lacrosse stick would be. “You won’t let me walk away, will you?” he asks Travis. His voice is steady.

“Nope,” Travis says.

Stiles takes another step backwards. “I don’t – ” he says, and then Travis lunges forward, already swinging. Stiles doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t even _blink_. He whips up the end of the lacrosse stick and slams it into Travis’s face so hard that he goes flying. Veronica doesn’t think she’s ever seen that happen before. His feet actually leave the ground. He flies several feet and then lands hard on his back with a grunt.

His three friends stand shocked for a moment, and then all of them rush Stiles in an instant. Veronica darts a glance at the Beacon Hills table. They’re serious now, no longer smiling, but still not what she would call worried. And now she understands why Stiles was acting uncertain, trying to back out. Anything he does now is self-defense in the eyes of the law.

Stiles plants one end of the staff in the sand and uses it to steady himself as he ducks under their blows and lashes out with a kick that catches one of the thugs in the knee. He staggers backwards and falls in the sand. Another stumbles when Stiles’ elbow slams up into his groin, and the last goes right over his shoulder, carried by his own momentum. And those are just the opening moves. Then they get back up.

“Six o’clock!” someone shouts, and without even _looking_ over his shoulder, Stiles swings the lacrosse stick around and catches one of the thugs in the stomach. “Four, down low!” the same voice says, and the staff continues around and smacks into Travis’s neck just as he’s trying to get up. Veronica looks over at the Beacon Hills table and sees Allison standing on it, eyes keen and face alight, calling out the positions of Stiles’ opponents.

It’s so smooth and well-coordinated that it _must_ be something they’ve practiced; it simply isn’t possible any other way. Stiles takes down one thug with a sharp crack to the knee with the lacrosse stick; he’s rolling around in the sand, hugging his knee to his chest. Thug two goes down twice more – once from a sharp punch to the stomach and another time from an impressive roundhouse kick to the face – but gets up both times. Thug number three likewise has yet to take serious injuries, and Travis has been dancing on the outskirts, letting the others handle the dirty work.

And it’s not like Stiles hasn’t gotten hurt. He’s bleeding from a split lip and a cut over his eyebrow, and she _knows_ that some of the blows to his abdomen have gotten through and had to have hurt. She’s starting to fear for the worst, despite the relaxed attitudes of his friends, when she realizes something important. It’s three on one, sure, but all of the thugs are breathing heavily, grunting in pain, moving stiffly. Stiles isn’t even winded. In fact, a huge grin has blossomed on his face. A feral, vicious, _joyful_ grin. Stiles is enjoying the shit out of this.

“Ten!” Allison shouts, and Stiles whips the stick around and slams the butt of it into thug two’s solar plexus and he’s _down_ , and now it’s only two on one because he’s not going to be getting up any time soon. The crowd goes _quiet_. Stiles managing to get a few lucky hits in is one thing, but this level of violence, while not unprecedented, is usually being heaped on the underdog rather than vice versa.

“Sev – ” Allison starts to say before thug three just tackles Stiles and they land in the sand and start to grapple. It’s a poor decision. Thug three may be built like a linebacker, but it takes Stiles less than twenty seconds to squirm out of his grip. He’s back on his feet before the thug even realizes he’s gotten free, and just as he’s turning to look, Stiles delivers a solid kick to his face. There’s an ‘ooooooh!’ from the crowd as everyone lets out a collective wince. But the thug doesn’t go down easily. He grabs Stiles by the ankle and yanks. Stiles manages to turn his fall into something controlled, but he still goes down hard. He rolls over and on top of thug three and punches him in the jaw. He groans and stops fighting.

Stiles stays there, kneeling on top of him, just _breathing_ for a minute. Just as he’s starting to get up, Allison shouts again, and for the first time there’s a note of panic in her voice because she’s not just calling out the position. “Knife! Five o’clock!”

Veronica’s gaze darts over to Travis, who has indeed pulled out a knife that’s at least five inches long, serrated and ugly. Her breath catches in her throat and several people in the crowd let out cries of fear – or in a few cases, hoots and hollers of encouragement. “Stiles!” she cries out despite herself, and Logan’s moving forward like he’s going to intervene.

Then Stiles whips around and he flings a handful of sand into Travis’s face. Travis stumbles backwards, letting out a shout of pain as the sand stings his eyes. What happens next is so fast that Veronica can’t even follow it. The next thing she knows, Travis’s on his stomach on the beach and Stiles is on top of him, his arm wrenched up behind his back. Stiles has his wrist in one hand and his knife in the other, the point of it pressed into the flesh right behind Travis’s ear. His gaze swings up and around the crowd like he’s making sure nobody else is considering making a move, and they flash a brilliant crimson, a curious trick of light that Veronica has to believe is because of the bonfire because the alternatives are too frightening to even contemplate.

“Get off me!” Travis shouts.

Stiles yanks his arm up higher and Travis lets out a scream of pain. “Say uncle, you son of a bitch!”

“Let me go!” Travis wails.

“You stupid piece of shit!” Stiles yells, punctuating this with another wrench to Travis’s arm. “Say uncle or I’ll tear your arm off like a wing off a fly, so help me God!”

“Uncle, uncle,” Travis sobs. “I’m sorry, please let me go . . .”

Stiles lets him go and gets to his feet. The table of kids from Beacon Hills has gone _still_ , like they’re waiting for something, although Veronica can’t imagine what. The crowd is just staring. Then Stiles lifts his hands suddenly, like he’s surrendering, and lets the knife fall into the sand. “Okay,” he says. “We’re done here.” And the breath goes out of his friends, and Veronica realizes that they were never afraid _for_ Stiles, not even when Travis pulled out the knife. They were afraid of what he might do, how far he might go.

Derek stands up. The crowd parts to let him through and he walks over to Stiles. But he doesn’t touch him. He doesn’t go within three feet of him. He just stands there in the circle with him, looking at the four young men on the ground, bloody and in pain and half-conscious. “Stiles,” Derek says quietly. Stiles sort of half-turns and Veronica sees his jaw tremble. He says something, she can’t hear what over the noise of the bonfire and the low murmurs that are now spreading through the crowd. But Derek nods and gets an arm around his shoulders, steering him through the crowd, out onto the beach, and then out of sight. The rest of the teenagers from Beacon Hills stand up and follow without a word. Erica kisses Weevil on the cheek and gives him a wave before she leaves. He stands up and saunters over to where Veronica and Logan are standing.

“Kicks a lot of ass for a skinny white boy,” Weevil says.

“Yeah,” Veronica agrees, still feeling numb.

Logan seems inclined to feel the same way. He looks at Veronica and says, “What the hell just happened?”

Veronica reaches out and hits the ‘stop’ button on her camera. “I have no idea.”

 

~ ~ ~ ~


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am excited about some of the developments in this chapter. ^_^
> 
> As we get more into the mystery, it will get a little more heavily into the Veronica Mars stuff. Any of my non-VM-watching readers, please feel free to tell me if I'm dumping too much on you at once, or if you have questions. <3

 

By the time Stiles is feeling calm enough to go home, it’s nearly midnight and he’s walked the beach twice over. They head back to the parking lot. The crowds have long since dissipated. They get back in their cars and drive back to the house. Most of the pack opts to go to bed pretty much immediately. It’s late, and they’re tired.

Stiles is debating between his bottle of Adderall and his bottle of Lunesta when the door from the garage opens and his father comes inside, still in his uniform. “Hey, you’re out late,” Stiles says.

“Yeah,” Sheriff Stilinski says. “Damndest thing. I was sitting here, enjoying my evening, when the hospital called about four teenaged boys who wound up in the ER.”

“How about that,” Stiles says casually.

“Looked like someone had kicked the tar out of them,” Stilinski continues, his tone conversational. “And yet none of them would tell me a single thing about what had happened or who had done it. According to them, they were playing a game of touch football that got a little rough.”

“Kids these days,” Stiles says.

“Must’ve been one hell of a game,” his father says. “One of them has a broken kneecap.”

“That’s some bad luck,” Stiles replies.

His father folds his arms over his chest and gives Stiles that unimpressed look. “Is there anything you want to tell me, son?”

“That depends on who’s asking,” Stiles says. “My father, or the sheriff?”

Stilinski sighs and drops into the chair next to Stiles. He looks at the two pill bottles on the table. “Might I ask why you felt it was necessary to break his kneecap?”

“I didn’t mean to,” Stiles says. “I was trying to hit him in the shin. He lost his footing in the sand and went down and the stick caught him across the knee instead.” He gives a little shrug. “I don’t think I caused any other serious injuries.”

“No, you didn’t,” Stilinski says. “Just . . .” He lifts his hand and begins to count. “Seven cracked ribs, three missing teeth, one mild concussion, one dislocated shoulder, and one broken nose.”

“Imagine what it would have looked like if I’d actually been pissed off,” Stiles says.

Sheriff Stilinski sighs. “Stiles. Why?”

Stiles looks up at him and says, “Because it was starting to bother Danny.”

Stilinski says nothing.

“They could talk themselves blue in the face about how I’m a fag and how I hid behind my daddy the sheriff and how I take it up the ass and how much cock I can suck,” Stiles says. “I don’t care. I’ve faced down warlocks and werewolves and the opinions of a bunch of rich, spoiled brats seriously mean _less_ than zero to me. But it was starting to bother Danny. He didn’t say anything. You know he wouldn’t. He told himself that he shouldn’t let it bug him. But it did. So I took care of it.”

Now Sheriff Stilinski sighs. “I saw the video. You were in the red hoodie. I guess that should have been explanation enough.”

Stiles just gives a little shrug. “Secondarily, since it’s possible someone is going around murdering gay kids for kicks, I thought now might be a good time to demonstrate that I am _not_ an attractive target. That was just a perk, though.”

“I can’t argue with you there,” Stilinski agrees. “But even if they don’t want to say anything, their parents might get involved. Nine people have already posted the damned video to You Tube. I can’t claim I don’t know what happened if one of them brings it to me.”

“Self-defense,” Stiles says. “It was four on one. I tried to back out, but they attacked me. That part might not be in the video on the internet, but I know Veronica got it in the one she made.”

“It’s harder to claim self-defense when you were armed and they weren’t.”

“I happened to be carrying my lacrosse stick. It’s not like I had a metal pipe.” Stiles shrugs. “What will be, will be. If they press charges, I’ll plead self-defense and try my luck in front of a jury. But they won’t. You know they won’t.”

Stilinski sighs. “I’ll admit it’s unlikely, but you’ll be in a hell of a lot of trouble if they do.”

“Trouble,” Stiles says. “That’s new. Whatever shall I do?” He picks up his bottle of Adderall and his mug of coffee. “Good night, Dad.”

His father shakes his head but knows better than to argue. “Good night, Stiles.”

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

“Come to bed, darling,” Logan says, flailing with one arm from where he’s sprawled out on the mattress in the hotel room he lives in.

Veronica glances over from her laptop. “Exactly how long have you been waiting for a chance to say that to me?” she asks.

“Long enough,” Logan says, and yawns. “C’mon. It’s past midnight. I’m cold and lonely. And you’ve been watching that video for an hour. What are you even looking for?”

Veronica rubs both her hands over her face. She knows that Logan’s right, and that her current frame of mind and level of weariness is not conducive to investigative work. “I don’t know,” she says. “But it’s weird. The whole thing is weird.”

“Nobody argued with you about that,” Logan says.

“Look at this,” Veronica says, fast-forwarding the video to the point where Stiles is looking directly at the camera, and his eyes are a brilliant crimson, a completely different color from their normal amber. “That’s not normal.”

Logan yawns again. “They’re probably just reflecting someone’s taillights or something,” he says. “Some weird trick of the light.”

“Yeah, but . . .” Veronica’s at a loss as to how to explain why this bothers her so much. Something about Stiles simply isn’t right. Her gut is telling her that, and she’s always trusted it. He’s hiding things, keeping secrets, and it bothers her on a level she simply can’t ignore. What’s worse is that he’s too close to her, too close to her friends. She would have counted him as a friend, but it’s not just that. Suddenly Mac is BFFs with Danny, and Weevil is dating – dating? Or possibly just screwing – Erica. Her friends might be in danger, and she can’t get past that.

“But what?” Logan asks, his tone fondly exasperated. “C’mon, Veronica.” He flails at her again. “Verrroonnnicaaaaa . . .”

She makes a face at him and slaps the laptop shut. “Okay, fine,” she says, and moves over to the bed. “So how do you explain the part where he literally moved faster than my camera could process?”

“He’s a ninja,” Logan says, nuzzling at her neck. “Obviously.”

“Look, I just . . . something is wrong here,” Veronica insists.

“Yes,” Logan says. “What is wrong is that you are ignoring my obvious attempts to seduce you.”

“Logan,” Veronica says impatiently.

He groans and sits up. “Okay, okay. You’re not going to get freaky with me until we work this out. What is your current theory?”

“I’m not going to get ‘freaky’ with you at all,” Veronica says, but laughs despite herself. “But I don’t have a theory. I just have . . . questions.” Why is she thinking about that stupid ‘Secrets of Beacon Hills’ website? It keeps worming its way back into her brain despite how much she tries not to let it. “Let me lay it out for you?”

“Lay me out,” Logan says.

She ignores the hint of suggestion in his voice. “Promise not to laugh?”

“Veronica,” Logan says, “believe it or not, you’re the smartest person I know. And when you get your teeth into a case, you don’t let go until you solve it. So yes, I promise not to laugh.”

“Even if I bring up things that sound ridiculous . . .?”

Logan groans. “Veronica, it’s quarter after midnight. Please stop dancing around the subject and tell me what you’re going on about.”

“His eyes are red, okay? Presuming that’s _not_ a trick of the light – because he isn’t facing the fire, and there was a sand bank between us and the parking lot and I don’t think anyone’s tail lights were on because nobody was in their cars – then what are we left with? Weird stuff. Not . . . not natural stuff.”

“Like demonic possession or something,” Logan says. “Okay.”

Veronica hesitates. “Okay? That’s all you have to say?”

“Well, I’m still waiting for you to get to the point.”

She cringes. “Werewolves. Werewolves are the point.”

“Oh, right,” Logan says. “That website you were telling me about.” He chews on his lower lip for a few moments. “Okay. Stories have to start somewhere, right? So we’re gonna assume for a few minutes that werewolves are real and that website wasn’t full of shit.”

“Yeah,” Veronica says, with a sigh of relief. “And I know it’s crazy, but – ”

“The more you talk about how crazy it is, the less close you are to solving your little mystery here,” Logan says, and taps her on the nose. “Once you’ve eliminated the impossible, whatever left, however improbable, must be the truth. Spock said that.”

“Sherlock Holmes said it first, you philistine,” Veronica says.

“Whatever.”

Veronica rolls her eyes at him. “Okay, fine! So he’s a werewolf. And there’s this big werewolf family feud between the Hale family and the Argent family and I don’t even know, okay? What matters is that now he’s down here.”

“Okay.” Logan lies down again and tucks his hands behind his head. “So what?”

“So . . . so what?”

“Yeah, so what?” Logan asks. “Who cares if he’s a werewolf or whatever? Why does it bother you? It’s not like he beat up a bunch of people we like. He made a stand against vile bigotry and ignorant douchetards. He kicked the snot out of a bunch of assholes who completely deserved it. So what if he used ninja skills or werewolf skills or plain old ‘I’ve taken a lot of karate classes’ skills?”

Veronica hesitates. She knows that Logan is right. One way or another, it doesn’t seem like Stiles and his friends are a threat to her. “It bothers me not to know the truth.”

“In that case, I’d get used to disappointment,” Logan says.

She narrows her eyes at him and says, “If that’s what you’ve got to say, you’d better get used to it, too, because that is _not_ how to go about seducing me.”

Logan groans. “How about if I tell you that you are the most amazing, intelligent, tenacious, stubborn, sexy, and infuriating girl I’ve ever met?”

“It’ll do,” Veronica says, flopping down to lie next to him. “At least for now. I just . . . I’m worried about Mac and Weevil. Mostly Mac. She’s had such a hard year, what with finding out the people who raised her aren’t her birth parents. She loves them, but . . . she’s never really connected with them and now she knows why. When I ask her about it, she always says she’s okay. And maybe she really is. I mean, she went on that camping trip with them last summer and she seemed to have fun, even if they did have to cut it short because she got hurt. And she’s got a boyfriend now, she seems really happy.”

“What, you’re worried that they’ll kidnap her and turn her into a werewolf?”

“Put like that, it does sound ridiculous,” Veronica says. “But yeah. She and Danny have gotten pretty close. They’re building all these websites together and probably planning corporate sabotage, knowing Mac . . .”

Logan lets out a snort of laughter. “Oh, hey, did I tell you about what Beaver’s been up to, speaking of?” he asks, and she shakes her head and gives him a disapproving frown. “What? Oh, fine. Cassidy. I’ve called him Beaver since I was eight, you know. But anyway, apparently he’s trying to pick up the scraps of his dad’s real estate empire and put them back together.”

“Sounds like a thankless task,” Veronica says dryly, although it’s somewhat of a relief to be back on a topic she knows something about.

“Yeah, but the kid’s actually pretty smart,” Logan says.

“I’ve seen his stock portfolio in FBLA,” Veronica says. “Even Lydia’s doesn’t compare. He’s got a head for business, I’ll grant him that. But I think Mac had mentioned it to me. She helped him with a corporate logo and stuff. Hey, whatever works for him, I guess.”

“I just think it’s interesting,” Logan says. “I mean, ‘cause he hates his dad so much. Yet here he is, following in his footsteps.”

“Maybe he wants to be better than him,” Veronica muses.

“Yeah, maybe,” Logan agrees. “I’ll grant that his dad treated him like shit. And even I noticed. Hell, sometimes I wondered if Cassidy was the postman’s child, his dad rags on him so much. And of course the worse he acts, the more Dick takes it as permission to be an asshole to Cassidy, too. It’s like fucking Little League all over again.”

“You were in Little League?” Veronica blurts out. “Hah!”

“For like two weeks,” Logan says, and he’s laughing too. “Woody Goodman’s team. I couldn’t take his rah-rah bullshit and I quit. I don’t think Dick lasted much longer than I did. Baseball requires actual effort, and Dick was born on a pool float with a mai tai in his hand. Cassidy stuck with it, though. I think he was trying to impress his dad.”

“I still can’t believe Dick and Cassidy are related,” Veronica says. “I could totally buy your postman theory. They’re at opposite ends of every spectrum: intellectual, emotional, grammatical . . .”

“Dick doesn’t mean any harm,” Logan says.

“Doesn’t mean he’s not going to get his ass kicked someday.”

“Sure,” Logan says. “On that day, I’ll make popcorn and sell tickets. I’m just saying. He’s too stupid to hate.”

“Fair enough,” Veronica says, “but if he fucks up what Cassidy’s building with Mac, that ass-kicking will come from me.”

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

At school on Monday, everyone is giving Stiles a wide berth. It doesn’t bother him. He’s sick of Neptune, sick of these rich, spoiled assholes. He’s longing for their next trip back to Beacon Hills. The sooner this semester is over, the happier he’s going to be. He applies himself to his schoolwork and ignores everybody else.

Even Veronica seems a little hesitant to strike up a conversation with him, although her friends don’t seem to mind. Mac is talking to Danny about some website she thinks he should help her moderate, and Weevil actually seems impressed by Stiles’ takedown of four bullies at once. Stiles decides to give Veronica a little time to process. If she’s bothered by the idea of Stiles being a badass, then pushing the issue certainly won’t help.

He did so much cooking over the weekend that their fridge is stuffed to bursting with food and nobody will let him into the kitchen. They insist that he do his homework and then relax in the pool, so he tries to do so. Around sunset, his father comes home, and joins the pack out at the pool. It was a long day, he says.

He’s barely been in the water for more than three minutes before his phone rings. It’s sitting on one of the deck chairs. “Hell,” he says, paddling towards the edge of the pool.

“I’ll grab it,” Scott says, since he’s closer and it seems unlikely that the sheriff will get to it before it rolls over to voicemail. He picks it up and says, “Hello? Yeah . . . hang on a sec.”

Sheriff Stilinski emerges from the pool, grabs a towel to quickly dry his face and hands, and then grabs the phone. “This is Sheriff Stilinski.” A brief pause. “Where? . . . okay. Yeah, I’ll be there in ten minutes.” He puts the phone down and says, “There’s been another murder.”

“Oh, shit,” Stiles says, unable to think of a more coherent reply. Not that his father is waiting for one. In fact, he’s heading back into the house. Stiles splashes out of the pool and follows him with the pack on his heels. By the time he gets inside, his father is in the bathroom, changing back into his uniform. “You haven’t eaten anything,” Stiles says. “It’s five thirty – ”

“From the sounds of it, I don’t want to eat right now,” Stilinski says, tugging his shoes on. “It’ll be a late night. Don’t wait up for me.”

Stiles nods, then shakes his head. “I – I can’t,” he blurts out. “I can’t just sit here and wait for you. Dad, I – I’m so edgy right now, I just – ”

His father reaches out and tousles his hair. “Okay,” he says. “You can follow me. But do _not_ enter the crime scene and try to stay out of sight.”

Stiles heaves a gusty sigh of relief and grabs his sneakers. “Okay,” he says. “Oh my God, thank you. Derek, will you – ” he says, and Derek is already peeling off his swim trunks so he can shift. Stiles gets the vest and the leash on him and jogs out to the car. The rest of the pack isn’t thrilled to be left behind, but they know that Derek will take care of Stiles.

He follows in the Jeep to a less scenic part of town. It’s not exactly a slum, but it’s for the less fortunate in Neptune – the working class. “Just think,” Stiles says, parking the Jeep on the other side of the road from his father’s cruiser, “if incorporation succeeds, soon the slums will be even slummier.” Derek gives a huff of agreement, but doesn’t say anything about it.

Sheriff Stilinski parked by an alley, which has already been closed off with yellow tape. Stiles waits in the Jeep, because there’s no point in rubbernecking. His father will keep him posted. As long as he’s there so he can intervene if he hears anyone shouting for help, that will do. He takes out his laptop and starts doing some of his homework while he waits. A few minutes later, he gets a text from his father. ‘Victim is Marcos Oliveres. Same MO as last time. Not being released yet – say nothing.’

Stiles nods, and he knows why his father is telling him. He starts to gather information.

His father doesn’t leave the scene for another half hour, and Stiles follows him back to the station. He says hello to Leo and follows his father back to his office. Leo gives him a little frown but doesn’t stop him.

“Tell me what you know,” Stilinski says to his son.

Stiles pushes both hands through his hair. “It would be hard to find two kids at Neptune High who were _less_ alike than Peter Ferrer and Marcos Oliveres,” he says. “Beyond the fact that they were both seniors, they have virtually nothing in common.”

“Classes together?”

“One. Journalism. That’s it. I skimmed both their Facebook pages – Peter’s is a memorial page now, but it’s still there. They don’t have _any_ mutual friends, and they hadn’t friended each other. They didn’t live anywhere near each other, didn’t travel in the same social circles, nothing.”

“Sports?”

“Marcos was on the baseball team, but Peter wasn’t involved in any sports at all. Not his style.”

Stilinski rubs his hand over his face. “Dating anyone?”

“He was single as far as I can tell,” Stiles says. “Broke up with his girlfriend a few weeks ago. I guess this shoots the whole ‘someone is targeting gay kids’ theory to hell.”

With a grimace, Stilinski agrees. “The basic MO was the same, in that the cause of death is blunt force trauma and a few knife wounds, but other than that, the cases are as different as night and day. Literally. Peter was killed at night, in his home. Marcos during the day, walking home from school. He was killed in the alley which is on his route home from school and the body was just left there.”

“Maybe it’s just random,” Stiles says. “I mean, that’s always possible.”

“Maybe,” Stilinski says. “Look, kid, I’m going to be here a while. I need to talk to the parents . . . and you shouldn’t be here for that. You get home. I’ll be at the station the rest of the night. If I decide to leave to follow a lead, I’ll call you. Okay?”

“Yeah,” Stiles says, and then sighs. “Thanks for . . . making allowances for how fucked up I am.”

“I know how it is to watch someone you love throw themselves into danger over and over again,” his father says, his tone somewhat dry. “I think I can make any allowances you need.”

Stiles makes a face at him, but heads home with Derek on his heels. He relays the information to the others, who have been waiting anxiously.

“What do you think?” Allison finally asks.

“I think we have a serial killer in town,” Stiles says, “but I haven’t the faintest idea who or what it is.”

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

Sleep is out of the question. Stiles takes some Adderall and stays up late, doing all of his homework, most of Erica’s, and half of Scott’s. (Scott is acing his advanced biology class and doing fairly well in trigonometry, but he somehow wound up in one of the business classes and he spends most of his time there looking faintly perplexed.) The others go to bed, but don’t pressure Stiles to join them. Derek falls asleep curled up at Stiles’ feet in his wolf form.

He jolts back to wakefulness when Stiles hears the front door open and shut and gets to his feet so quickly that he nearly kicks Derek in the ribs. He stumbles a little, and by the time he’s made it downstairs, his father is in the kitchen, opening a bottle of whiskey. “That bad?” he asks, trying to keep the anxiety out of his voice.

Sheriff Stilinski pours himself a shot and says, in an even, measured voice, “The Oliveres’ loved their son.” Then he downs the shot.

Stiles’ winces. He knows that informing a family of a tragedy is one of the worst parts of being a police officer. It’s one of the many reasons he thinks he would do better in forensics or cold case work. “Any leads?”

“As usual, the victim was loved by all, had no enemies, nobody can think why somebody might have done this.” Stilinski pours himself a second shot. “But there was one weird thing.” He pulls out his phone and starts tabbing through photos. Then he sets it down on the counter for Stiles to look at. Derek is just now coming in, having stopped to pull on some gym shorts he keeps lying around. He leans over Stiles’ shoulder to look at the photograph. It’s the back of someone’s neck, and there’s a precise cut about two inches long across it.

“Knife wound?” Derek asks.

“Looks like, yeah,” Stilinski says. “It’s not the wound itself that’s odd. It’s the placement of it. That’s from Marcos’ autopsy. Peter Ferrer had a cut in the exact same place.”

Stiles frowns. “The hell could that mean?”

“Beats me.” Stilinski puts a cube of ice into his whiskey and sips it slowly. “I didn’t think anything of it on Peter’s autopsy. He had some other knife wounds – defensive wounds on his hands and arms, mostly. So I figured the knife had just caught him there incidentally. But Marcos has this exact same wound. It’s clipped the spinal cord. Not severed it, which might have killed him in and of itself. Just clipped it.”

“What about Peter?”

“Don’t know,” Stilinski says. “The ME at that time didn’t look too closely at that particular wound, but just noted down that he had a knife wound across the back of the neck. This time he looked at it more carefully upon my request.”

“Maybe it’s some kind of signature,” Stiles says. “Serial killers are known to sign their work, so to speak.”

“If so, it’s an odd thing to do,” Stilinski says. “It’s worth pointing out that it was made while Marcos was still alive. So if he signed his work, he did it before finishing it.”

“What was the actual cause of death?” Derek asks. “How much of the incident have you been able to reconstruct?”

Stilinski says. “In Peter’s case, someone came in through the back door. He was backing away from them, holding his hands up to defend himself, which is when we presumed he got the knife wounds. Then he probably turned to run. Either way, after that he was just thrown into the floor and the wall a bunch of times. Marcos’ death was similar. No defensive wounds on the front this time. He tried to run, not fight. Then it slammed him repeatedly into the metal Dumpster in the alleyway.”

“Jesus,” Derek mutters.

Stiles is quiet for a minute. “You said ‘it’.”

“What?” Stilinski asks.

“Before this, you’ve always referred to the killer as a ‘he’. But now, just now, you said ‘it slammed him into the dumpster’.”

Stilinski looks down at the photograph. “I’ve got to tell you, I’ve never seen anything this brutal done by a human. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a human. Humans can be monsters, too.”

“Well,” Stiles says, “forward me that picture. I’ll send it to Deaton and see if he knows any type of monster that makes that kind of wound. And I’ll ask Lydia to check the bestiary. You know, in the morning, since she would kill me if I woke her up now, and rightfully so.”

Stilinski nods. “You ought to get some sleep.”

“Most likely,” Stiles agrees.

His father sighs. “Will you at least try?”

“In an hour or so maybe,” Stiles says. “I need to unwind first. I’ll have some green tea and take a bath. Derek, our house in Beacon Hills needs a Jacuzzi.”

Derek nods seriously. “I’ll get right on that.”

 

~ ~ ~ ~


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The plot thickens....
> 
> Happy Halloween, everybody!

Veronica finds out about Marcos’ death from her father just before school in the morning, and she’s still shaken when she gets there. One death was horrible, but something she felt she could leave to the police. With another murder, she suddenly feels unsafe. She’s trying so hard not to think about Lilly’s body and her blood on the pavement that she nearly runs a stop sign on the drive.

School is running wild with rumors which range from frighteningly believable to completely ridiculous. Veronica tunes them out. She hasn’t slept well since Stiles’ fight on the beach. She doesn’t want to admit it and can’t begin to explain it. Logan had hesitantly asked about it, saying it wasn’t unreasonable if violence bothered her after what had happened, and she had shut him down so hard that now he’s not speaking to her. She’s pretty sure she owes him an apology, but isn’t ready to give it yet.

She knows that he’s probably right, and certainly nobody else seems particularly bothered by Stiles’ behavior on the beach that night. The school is split between people treating him like a pariah and a quiet, adoring fan club. Even the people that hate him don’t seem to be freaked out by him the same way. Veronica’s content to quietly avoid him until she’s figured out how to deal with her conflicted feelings on the matter. She wants to be content to avoid thinking about the murders of Peter Ferrer and Marcos Oliveres, but she’s pretty sure that’s not going to happen.

On the other hand, she didn’t know either of them very well and, like Stiles, quickly comes to the conclusion that they had nothing in common. Her father is texting her every fifteen minutes to remind her not to get involved. She has repeatedly promised that it won’t be a problem. In fact, she’s in the middle of promising for the seventh time when someone pulls her aside, a boy she knows by sight but not by name. “Hey, uh . . . can I talk to you for a second, Veronica?”

“Step into my office,” she says, and she heads for the bathroom, giving him a closer look as she does so. He’s gangly and awkward looking, not unattractive but sort of average, with brown hair cut in a bowl cut and a moderate nervous twitch. “What can I do for you?”

“You have to promise not to tell _anyone_ ,” he says.

“I’m the soul of discretion,” Veronica says, holding her hand up in the Girl Scout salute. “Uh . . . Ryan, right?”

“Yeah.” He nods a little. “It’s about Marcos.”

Veronica looks down at the phone on which she has _just_ promised her father she won’t get involved in a murder investigation. She tucks it away and says, reluctantly, “If you know anything about what might have happened, you should go to the police.”

Ryan looks at her like she’s crazy. After the last year or so under Lamb’s rule, she can’t entirely blame him. And she’s not entirely sure she would go to the police herself, if she were in his shoes. She can’t stop this nagging suspicion that if something about Stiles isn’t right, his father might not be all right, either.

“Okay,” she says, lifting her hands in surrender. “Lay it on me.”

Ryan swallows nervously and glances over his shoulder as if to check for eavesdroppers. “Have you heard of the SHIP website?”

“Can’t say that I have,” Veronica says.

“It was a chat room. An online thing for gay kids in Neptune.”

Veronica arches her eyebrows. “Must’ve gotten a lot of action in the past couple weeks,” she says, thinking of their inevitable reaction to Stiles’ antics.

“Yeah,” Ryan agrees. “Look, uh . . . Marcos posted there sometimes.”

Veronica’s head snaps up. “Marcos was gay?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know – he didn’t know. I think he was but just . . . hadn’t managed to deal with it yet. His parents sent him to this conversion camp over the summer, and he . . . he came back different. He hadn’t posted on the SHIP website in months but he still had an active membership. So did Peter.”

“So if someone is targeting gay kids . . .” Veronica says.

Ryan nods miserably. He’s actually crying a little, wiping his eyes repeatedly. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I just . . . I kept hoping if Marcos pulled his head out of his ass . . .”

Veronica grabs a paper towel and hands it over to him. “I need to know who else was a member of the website,” she says. “They could be in danger.”

“I know, but . . . I can’t just give you their names. Not in this town. Not even with what’s happened in the last month. I’ll give you their online handles. After that, you’re on your own.”

Veronica sighs but agrees, because it’s clear that Ryan’s not going to budge and she thinks she can get around it anyway. She tucks away the list into one of her binders and goes looking for Mac after school. She’s in the computer lab with Cassidy. “What are you two up to?” Veronica asks them.

Cassidy gives Veronica a somewhat suspicious look, like he isn’t sure why she’s asking, but Mac just smiles at her and says, “Cassidy’s step-mom is giving a big pitch to some investment types tomorrow and we’re working on the portfolio. Apparently it’s been a hard sell because Cassidy’s betting against incorporation and most people think it’ll pass.”

“Really?” Veronica looks at Cassidy, somewhat surprised. “You’re not in favor of incorporation?”

“It’s not about whether or not I’m in favor of it,” Cassidy says. “It’s about which way I think it’ll go, and which way I can make more profit.”

Veronica laughs and says, “I’ve seen your profits in FBLA. I’m willing to take your word on it. Mind if I borrow your girlfriend for a minute?”

“Yeah, no problem,” Cassidy says. “I have some stuff I need to do anyway. Later, Mac.”

“Bye!” she says, waving as he leaves the classroom.

“No goodbye kiss?” Veronica asks.

“Cassidy is _strictly_ against PDA,” Mac says, then frowns and says, “or, for that matter, A. But we’re, you know, working on it. I think he’s just so used to being told he’s not good at anything that he’s afraid I’ll tell him he’s a bad kisser or something. Anyway, what’s up?”

“I need you to get me some information off a website,” Veronica says. “There’s this site for gay teens in Neptune. I have the URL and the usernames, but . . .” She sees the way Mac has stiffened. “You run it, don’t you.”

“Yeah, that’s the site I was trying to get Danny to help me moderate,” Mac says. “Veronica, I can’t just give you that information, I mean . . .”

It takes Veronica almost half an hour to convince Mac that she really, really needs it, that lives could be at stake, and that she absolutely promises she’ll handle it with the utmost discretion and will make sure that nobody else gets a hold of it, except the sheriff. She’s come to the conclusion that she’ll have to share it with him. She simply doesn’t have the manpower to think about protective details for the kids who are at the highest risk.

Finally, after going back and forth for a while, Mac agrees and prints out a list of the website’s members. She clearly doesn’t like handing it over, but she does. She explains that the website wasn’t _just_ for gay kids, but that anyone questioning their sexuality or even feeling GLBT friendly could join up. There are currently about twenty members. Along with those, Mac gives her the IP addresses for two or three people who had joined to troll the community and had ultimately been banned.

By the time Veronica gets to the station, she’s folded and unfolded the list that it’s starting to become torn. Her fingers have worried at the ink, smudging it. She’s increasingly nervous as she steps into the police station. She can only imagine how Lamb would react to being brought this information. It isn’t pretty.

Leo is at the desk. He looks up and gives her a polite, professional smile. “Hey, Veronica,” he says. “How’ve you been?”

“Not bad,” she says, and lets out a breath. “I need to talk to the sheriff.”

Leo gives her a look up and down, and then nods. “I’ll get him for you,” he says, and heads into the back.

He comes out a few minutes later with Sheriff Stilinski in tow. Leo gives them both a nod and turns back to what he was doing, and the sheriff turns to Veronica. “Miss Mars, what can I help you with?” he asks. There’s nothing mocking in his expression.

“I need to speak to you privately.” Veronica twists the piece of paper into a cylinder in her hands. “It’s about the murders.”

The sheriff’s eyebrows climb, but he doesn’t miss a beat. “Could you follow me to my office?” he says, and gestures for her to head on back, starting down the short hallway. The office looks a lot different from how it did under Lamb’s supervision. There’s almost no decoration at all, and there’s piles of paper everywhere, signs of actual work being done. Once they’re inside, he closes the door, offering her a seat and then backing off to avoid crowding her. He knows a nervous teenager when he sees one. Instead of sitting back down at the desk, he leans one shoulder against the wall opposite the door. She doesn’t need the pointed reminder of the desk to tell her that he’s the sheriff. “What’s on your mind?”

“Well,” Veronica says, “after Peter was killed, a lot of kids at school assumed it was one of Tad’s friends, you know, in response to the fact that gay-bashing is now actually a crime in Neptune. And I know that after Marcos was killed, you’re . . . probably thinking that’s been ruled out. Right?”

“You’re about to tell me I’m wrong, aren’t you,” Stilinski says, with a heavy sigh.

“I’m not saying Marcos was gay,” Veronica says. “I guess he was . . . questioning. But there was a website. An online chat forum for Neptune students who were LGBT, and he was one of the members. Peter was too. If . . . if anyone had somehow gotten a list of identities from that website . . .”

“It could very well double as a list of nicely packaged targets.” He goes to sit down now, and unearths a pad of paper and a pen from the cluttered disaster it’s turned into in such a short period of time. “So this website, I don’t suppose you can give me the URL? I’m assuming that everyone posts under a screen name or anonymously?”

Veronica nods. “I have a list of the members. The real names. My friend runs the website, and she got it for me, but . . . it’s really, really important that nobody finds out who’s on this list. I mean . . . not just because of the murders.”

“I understand,” Stilinski says. “Coming out is a big deal for anyone. Especially around here, it seems. No one needs their secrets made public, and I can respect that.”

Veronica takes a breath. The paper in her hands has been mangled. After two false starts, she manages to hand it to him, trying not to think of Lamb’s smirking face and the God-knew-what he would have done with this information. “I don’t know how we can protect potential victims without spilling their secret,” she says.

He takes it from her gently, with care for both the paper and for the girl handing it to him, who’s clearly afraid he’s going to turn on her somehow. At first he was planning to tell her ‘let me worry about that’, not as a pat on the head but to genuinely take the worry from her shoulders. But after watching her for a few moments, he knows that would be the wrong thing to say. She’s like Stiles that way. Keeping her in the dark will only make her feel worse, and if anything happened, she would worry that it was her fault for giving out the information. “I’m going to start by making some private phone calls. I don’t need anyone coming down here or squad cars at people’s homes. That would be like waving a red flag.”

Some of the tension eases out of Veronica’s shoulders and she manages a little smile. “The URL of the website is on there. Mac has matched up the user names to the real names, and . . . some of the kids are obviously more comfortable. Like if you look in the forums, some of them mention that their parents know. So you could maybe start with them, and they might know how to get in touch with the ones that are, uh, further in the closet, without alarming anybody.”

“That’s an excellent idea,” Sheriff Stilinski says. Then he starts to think about the unpleasant task of protection details and how well he _doesn’t_ know most of the men and the few women in his employ. “How well do you know the officers here?”

“Well enough,” Veronica says with a sigh. “You can’t do it. You wouldn’t have enough decent ones. Unless we can narrow it down somehow. But Peter and Marcos . . . they didn’t really have anything in common besides both being on this website.”

“Well, I’ll have to keep looking.” Stilinski turns the pad of paper around to face her, and holds out the pen. “In the meantime, can you give me a list of officers that you’re pretty sure won’t have trouble on a case like this? Not enough is still some.” If nothing else, he figures that the boys are more likely to be targeted than the girls. Gay women didn’t always generate the same knee-jerk violent reaction as men, and both the victims so far had been male.

Veronica picks up the pen, then sets it down. “It’s probably better if you ask my dad,” she says. “He would know better than I would.”

“Then I’ll do that.” He takes both things, then asks, “Is he in town today?”

“Yeah. He was at the office last time I checked.” Veronica hesitates. She wants to bring up the fight on the beach, the way Stiles invited an ass-kicking but then delivered one twice as hard. She thinks he should know, but just isn’t sure what to say.  She decides to try to go about it in a roundabout fashion. “Your, uh, Stiles isn’t sure it has anything to do with homophobia. He said after Peter was killed that if it was because he was gay, the timing was weird. That if people were upset about Tad, they would’ve gone after him, not after Peter, since he’s been out of the closet for years and they’ve left him alone.”

The sheriff sighs, wearing a somewhat put-upon expression. “Stiles is a target that’s easy to see but difficult to hit. So his base logic is valid, but sometimes when people miss their first target, they go for an easier mark. I’m not going to give up other avenues of investigation, but I can’t ignore this one, either.”

“Yeah, I just . . . uh, I guess I’m a little concerned that he might . . . take matters into his own hands,” Veronica says hurriedly. Stiles is her friend, but she’s freaked out right now, more than she wants to admit. She’s not sure she can trust Sheriff Stilinski, particularly if it’s in regards to his son. His reply here might give her a better idea of whether or not she can.

“Stiles has a problem backing down when he feels he’s being pushed or cornered. But, uh . . .” Sheriff Stilinski rubs at his forehead with his palm. “That wouldn’t be a condition you know anything about, would it, Miss Mars? I suspect you just go about it differently.”

Veronica is somewhat taken aback by this. “Well, yes, I guess so. I’m not sure how to put this, but . . .”

“Veronica, if this is your way of trying to protect your friend and not betray Stiles’ trust by telling me what he’s been up to, I know all about the fight on the beach,” Stilinski says, not unkindly. “I know my son. I know what he’s capable of, and I know how he goes about protecting himself.”

Veronica can’t help but give a sigh of relief. “Okay. I . . . just wanted to make sure you knew.”

“I appreciate that. I also appreciate this.” He gestures with the list that Veronica had brought him. “No one should ever have to feel nervous or unsure about coming in here with information. Well, no one innocent, at least.”

“Hah! Yeah, well . . .” Veronica stands up. “I should be going. Things to do, people to see, et cetera.”

“Try not to get into more trouble than you can handle. And rest assured that the department really is looking into things for once,” he says, and stands as well, to show her out.

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

Stiles is eight miles deep into Wikipedia-surfing (currently he’s reading about the simulated Nazi invasion of Winnipeg in 1942, although he couldn’t have told you how he got there) when his phone chimes. He glances at it to see that he has a message from his father. It reads ‘Come by the station when you have a minute. Not an emergency. Do not panic.’

He can’t help but shake his head a little in rueful amusement. His father knows him too well sometimes. He finishes reading the article, manfully resists clicking on the numerous interesting looking links it contains, and then goes on the hunt for his shoes. They seem to have disappeared. He stands in his room with his hands on his hips for a minute before he lets out a huff and goes out onto the landing. “Okaaaay, who took my shoes?” he asks.

Lydia pokes her head out of the bedroom. “You’ve been working too hard and worrying too much.”

“You are absolutely right about both those things,” Stiles says, “but if you think hiding my shoes will stop me from doing either of them, you clearly don’t know me at all.”

Lydia rolls her eyes and disappears from sight. Stiles hears Scott say, “I _told_ you guys it wouldn’t work,” and then some unknown pack member tosses his sneakers out into the hallway.

“Going to go see my dad at the station,” Stiles says. “I’ll be back in a bit.”

By the time he gets downstairs, Derek has already put on his service dog vest and shifted. Stiles clips the leash to the vest and jogs out to the Jeep. Neptune is bigger than Beacon Hills, and it takes almost fifteen minutes to get to the station. Stiles is tense and edgy, although really no more than usual. His research into what might cut someone on the back of the neck before killing them has yielded absolutely no results. He’s hoping his father has better news.

Leo greets him and says, “He’s in a meeting and said not to interrupt him. You can wait if you want.”

“Yeah, I’ll hang out,” Stiles says. He takes out his phone, starts up a game of Tetris, pauses it and surfs the web, fingers thumbing absently, anxiously, at the screen. Derek presses up against his leg, and Stiles stops to take a breath and think about how fidgety he’s being. “Yeah, I’m all right,” he murmurs, but then two seconds later someone is shouting in his father’s office, and he jumps.

“ – dare you ask that – ”

Stiles casually leans back in his chair, inching towards the door to the office. His hearing isn’t good enough to hear what they’re saying when voices aren’t raised, but he can certainly hear them now, including his father, who sounds surprisingly pissed off about something.

“Do you want your son’s killer brought to justice?” Sheriff Stilinski asks. “Because if so, I need you to be completely honesty with me. This is important – ”

“It’s completely irrelevant and not even true!” the other voice shouts. “And if you say anything to anyone – ”

“Sir, I respect your right to privacy,” Stilinski says, and his voice is somewhat strained as he continues, “and I’ll do you the courtesy of not offering my own opinion on _your_ opinion of your son’s sexuality, but that doesn’t change the fact that it is _very_ relevant to this investigation – ”

“You know,” a new voice says from outside the office, and Stiles startles and flails and nearly falls out of the chair, “I’ve heard it works better if you press a glass against the wall.”

“Hah, yeah, no kidding,” Stiles says, rubbing his hand over the back of his neck and eyeing this newcomer. He’s a little on the short and chubby side, balding and weary-looking. “Sorry, I, uh, I was just waiting for my dad to get out of his meeting.”

“What a coincidence, so am I,” the man says, and extends his hand. “Keith Mars.”

“Oh, Veronica’s dad!” Stiles says, and shakes the offered hand. “She talks about you all the time.”

“God forbid,” Keith says, smiling. “And you must be the famous Stiles. I heard that to combat your lack of Pirate Points, you brought a solar-powered hot plate to school and started making tacos for all your friends.”

“Hey, I’m eco-conscious,” Stiles says, amused that this is what Keith has chosen to focus on, rather than his many other misadventures. “So, uh, what brings you to the station?”

“Your dad wanted my advice on some personnel issues,” Keith says. “I needed to come by the station to get a check for a bail jumper I brought in last week, so I figured I would just stop by.”

“Personnel issues, huh?” Stiles asks.

Keith just smiles at him. “I suppose saying ‘it’s confidential’ would get me about as far with you as it would with my daughter?”

“Maybe a little further,” Stiles says. “But only because I’d rather beg my dad for information than you.”

This is met with a laugh, and then the door to the sheriff’s office is flung open and Marcos Oliveres’ parents storm out. The mother has obviously been crying. Sheriff Stilinski stands in the doorway, watching them depart with a frown creasing his features. Then he sees Keith and the expression clears. “Thanks for coming,” he says, shaking his hand. “I appreciate the help.” He sees Stiles and says, “Do you mind waiting another few minutes?”

“I’m cool,” Stiles says. “Just chillin’. Like a villain.”

“Stop talking,” his father says.

“Yes, sir.”

As the door to the sheriff’s office swings shut, Derek gets to his feet and stretches. Then he starts purposefully walking towards the foyer of the building. “What, what,” Stiles says, getting up and following him because really, what else can he do? Derek tugs him along until they reach the vending machines, then gets up on his hind legs and presses the button for Coke. Then he gives Stiles an expectant look. Stiles grumbles but reaches for his wallet. “It’s not that I don’t have enough meds on board,” he says. “Just that I’m tense, okay? Sometimes I’m just tense.”

Derek just rolls his eyes, and he clearly isn’t going to budge on the issue, so Stiles buys the can of Coke and chugs the first half of it while he waits for his father. Keith comes out a minute later; the two men shake hands and then Keith gives a little wave to Stiles before he departs. Then Stiles charges into his father’s office and shuts the door.

“Marcos was gay?” he says immediately. “And his parents didn’t tell you?”

Sheriff Stilinski sighs and sinks into his chair. “Marcos _might_ have been gay. His parents sent him to some camp over the summer to try to straighten him out.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Stiles says.

His father sighs and lifts his hands in surrender. “Apparently there’s an online chat forum that a bunch of the teens in Neptune use. Marcos wasn’t an active member, but he was registered. So was Peter Ferrer. That is the first definite connection we’ve found, and it ties in to the hate crime theory. Unfortunately, there are almost two dozen kids on this website and the posts number in the hundreds. I just don’t have the time to go through it all myself. You want to do a little detective work for me?”

“Oh my God,” Stiles says. “I thought you’d never ask.”

“I’m going to give you the website and the online handles that Peter and Marcos were using. Go through and see who they talked to, see if anyone was giving them a hard time, see if they mentioned being threatened or followed – anything out of the ordinary.”

“Got it,” Stiles says, grabbing at the piece of paper his father is holding.

“Do _not_ let it interfere with your schoolwork, and don’t share it with anyone outside the pack.”

“Sir, yes sir,” Stiles says, still making grabby motions. His father sighs, mutters something about how he’s probably going to regret this, and hands it over.

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

When Veronica isn’t overrun the next day by people from the SHIP website demanding to know who sold them out, she starts to relax and get back to the larger mystery at hand. She’s been focusing for the last few hours on figuring out what Stiles had said to Derek at the end of the fight. He was looking in the direction of the camera at the time, with his head only slightly turned. She’s downloaded some lip-reading software in the hopes that she’ll be able to get it translated.

But in the end, it’s not illuminating at all. Stiles is standing there, breathing hard, trembling a little, and when Derek walks over to him, he looks up and says, “I have to get out of here.” Which seems like a perfectly reasonable thing to say, if not for the fact that his friends were all treating him like some ticking time bomb.

The video has been posted on YouTube by several different classmates and been passed around from site to site, never quite reaching that stage of epic virality occupied by ‘Call Me Maybe’ but never quite going still, either. That doesn’t seem too unusual, considering the content. Fight videos are as popular as parkour videos on the internet, and this is something of both. She might have discounted it completely if not for the fact that one of the sites has taken the video and titled it ‘The Boy in Red vs. Four Epic Failures’.

Everywhere Stiles goes, Veronica keeps seeing the color red.

The site has disallowed commenting, which is disappointing, as she was hoping to gain some insight there. So she just watches the video over and over again, not even sure what she’s looking for or why that damned red sweatshirt seems so important to her.

“What are you trying to solve, Mars?” she murmurs to herself.

She’s looking through an image gallery that has some high-quality, if extremely watermarked, prints of Derek Hale’s artwork for sale. She startles when Mac leans over her shoulder and says, “That’s _cool_. I think I’m going to buy it and hang it on my wall.”

“You think?” Veronica asks. It’s one of the earlier paintings, with Stiles and just a few wolves, and his face isn’t visible. “It’s one of Derek’s. You know, Stiles’ boyfriend.”

“Guy’s got talent,” Mac says, dropping into the seat beside her. “How’d it go yesterday?”

“Fine,” she says. “Still working on it.”

“Looks like you’re working on an art project,” Mac says.

“I’ll admit to some mild curiosity about why Derek always paints his boyfriend wearing a red hoodie and surrounded by wolves,” Veronica says.

Mac has the same immediate impression as Wallace. “Metaphorical,” she says. “You know, because of everything Stiles has been through.”

“A good guess, but . . .” Veronica flips through the gallery to find the pictures where Stiles is lying in the wolf cuddle pile. “The wolves are pretty obviously friends.” There’s another, more of a sketch, where Stiles is holding a shepherd’s stick and leading a group of wolves in a line. “I just don’t get it. I guess art analysis isn’t my thing. Why wolves?”

“They’re not even all wolves,” Mac says, through a mouthful of apple. She tapes the screen of Veronica’s laptop, indicating what Veronica had taken for a cream-colored wolf with dark markings. “That’s a dog. Well, probably a wolf-dog mix. Part German Shepherd or Husky, maybe.”

Veronica resists the urge to throw her hands up in the air. “I have no idea what that might mean.”

“I have no idea why you care,” Wallace says, sitting down across from her. To Mac, he says, “She’s obsessed with those paintings. You talked to Logan yet?”

“No,” Veronica says. “I’ll find him after school so I can do my groveling without an audience, thank you.” She glances around to make sure nobody’s close enough to be within hearing distance. “Look, promise not to tell anybody I said this, but . . . I just can’t help but think it can’t be a coincidence that someone moved to town who has obvious violent tendencies, and now two people have been violently murdered.”

Mac nearly chokes on her apple. “You think Stiles had something to do with the murders? Uh, isn’t his dad the sheriff?”

“Yes,” Veronica says. “So what?”

“Okay, fair point, but . . .” Wallace shakes his head. “C’mon, that makes the opposite of sense. Stiles beat the shit out of some guys who were giving him a hard time for being gay. Why kill a couple other gay kids on the downlow?”

“We don’t _know_ that was why they were targeted,” Veronica says, and shrugs. “Maybe he’s framing one of the homophobes for it.”

“Uh, I don’t think Stiles is the kind of person who would kill two random guys to get someone else in trouble,” Mac says. “He seems to be a little more, I don’t know, direct than that. Like, when he was pissed at Travis and his pals, he beat the shit out of them. He didn’t frame them for murder.”

“I’m just saying, he’s not entirely without motive,” Veronica says, “and the timing is just so weird otherwise. Peter’s been out of the closet for over two years. Why would somebody kill him now?”

“And Stiles is new in town so that makes him a good suspect?” Wallace asks.

“Yeah, I guess,” Veronica says. She shifts uncomfortably and says, “And there’s something else. He obviously loves his dad and wants his career to succeed. So maybe he’s giving his dad a big crime to solve. Something that will really make the papers, make him famous.”

“That is the definition of twisted,” Wallace says. “Where do you come up with this shit?”

“Look, something is weird about Stiles,” Veronica says. “Something . . . it’s like a puzzle where all the pieces don’t quite fit together. How can _one kid_ have had so many horrible things happen to him? First there’s a string of murders in Beacon Hills that were committed by either Derek’s uncle or Allison’s aunt, depending on which source you trust. Then someone tries to kill Stiles’ father. Then he gets caught in this big shooting in the woods. And now this. It’s like . . . everywhere he goes, trouble follows.”

“And you think that somehow, that’s connected to the fact that his boyfriend likes to paint him in a red sweatshirt,” Wallace says. He sounds skeptical.

“I’m saying that we haven’t _once_ seen Stiles wear red since he came to Neptune, except for that fight, he wore that hoodie, and now some random website has titled the video ‘the boy in red’. Like it’s some . . . official title or something.”

“Or like . . . they didn’t know who it was, so . . . they named it based on the age of the guy and the shirt he was wearing,” Wallace says.

“Damn you and your logic,” Veronica says, and rubs both her hands over her face. “Maybe you’re right and I’m overthinking this. But Stiles just seems so _comfortable_ with violence. At the pool party, when I startled him in the house, he didn’t scream or back away. He went for a weapon. He didn’t twitch an eyelid when he just admitted to me yeah, Derek’s uncle killed Allison’s aunt. And then he disappeared. Nobody knows what happened to him.”

“So your conclusion is what?” Mac asks. “Stiles killed him and hid the body, and now he’s killing other people?”

“My conclusion is that I want answers,” Veronica says. “Can we just leave it at that?”

Wallace and Mac exchange a glance. In that glance, Wallace is apparently nominated spokesman, because he says, “Can I say something you aren’t gonna like?”

Veronica lets out a sigh. “Of course you can.”

“Are you sure that you’re not trying to make this about you? That you _have_ to have some sort of mystery to solve? That if you can trust the sheriff to do his job, if you don’t have reason to believe his kid is a suspect, you don’t have to investigate and _that’s_ what’s bothering you?”

Veronica grits her teeth in frustration and forces herself to remember that these people are her friends. “No, I’m not sure of that,” she says. “I’m not sure of that at all. But as long as me poking around at Derek’s gallery and searching random shit on the internet isn’t hurting anybody, then I feel I’m entitled.”

“Well, that seems fair,” Mac says. She gives Veronica a minute. “Anyway, I thought Stiles and his friends weren’t in town when Peter was killed.”

“We only have their word on that,” Veronica says. “And I have virtually no information on the crime scenes. Sheriff Stilinski seems to honestly want to solve this, but how can I really judge that? And I can’t get information from the police the way I used to. Lamb was stupid enough that I could sneak it out underneath his nose. Stilinski runs a much tighter ship. Leo’s already told me that he doesn’t even want to be _seen_ with me, because he’s afraid of endangering his job if Sheriff Stilinski thinks he’s snooping for me again.”

“In theory . . .” Mac purses her lips. “Look, I won’t say I like this _or_ that I think you’re right about Stiles. But if he _did_ commit a crime back in Beacon Hills – the extremely theoretical murder of Peter Hale – that would get him listed as a suspect right away, right? And then his dad would probably be removed from the case due to conflict of interest.”

“That’s true,” Veronica says. “So . . . start on the disappearance of Peter Hale and go from there?”

“Hey, at least it’d be a place to start,” Wallace says.

Veronica looks at the picture of Stiles and his red hoodie and his wolves. “You’re right about that,” she says. “At least it would give me a place to start.”

 

~ ~ ~ ~


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter needs dramatic music.
> 
> Oh, and just so you're warned, there is some Stiles/Erica stuff in this. (Nothing graphic.) Just warning you since that seems iffy for some of you. ^_^

The SHIP website is far too large and busy for Stiles to go through everything by himself, so he recruits a few of the others to help. Danny, because he knows all the slang. Derek, because he doesn’t have school work he needs to be doing. And Erica, because she never does her school work anyway, and having her there lightens up the otherwise sober mood.

The forum’s topics vary from the humorous ‘gaydar fails’ to the much more serious ‘how/when/if to come out’ and there’s at least a hundred posts going back about two years. Stiles designates a set of topics for everyone, gives them Marcos and Peter’s usernames, and they gather around the kitchen table with their laptops – or in Danny’s case, his iPad – and get to work.

“Check this out,” Stiles says, skimming through the ‘coming out’ forum. “This one girl is saying that when her older sister came out last year, her parents threw her out of the house, and now she’s terrified to say anything because she knows they’ll throw her out, too. What is wrong with people?”

“They have the moral compasses of homing pigeons with magnets strapped to their backs?” Danny suggests, while manfully resisting the urge to start banging his head against the table.

“Magnets?” Erica asks, frowning.

“Homing pigeons work by geomagnetism,” Stiles says to her, somewhat absently. “Oh, here’s Marcos again. Telling her that it’s okay to play along with what her parents want, at least until she’s not dependent on them.”

“I guess that is one way to deal with it,” Danny says. “But man, I think that would build a lot of hostility on both sides. But what the fuck do I know? My parents are awesome.” He shakes his head a little and says, “That does imply that the whole conversion camp thing was an abject failure.”

“This was before that,” Stiles says. “I’m in archives from about six months ago. As far as I can tell, Marcos never posted on the website after coming home. That may just be because his parents were monitoring his internet, though, not because of any actual sort of conversion success.”

“I’m betting he was just playing his parents if he already had that mindset beforehand,” Danny says as he absently skims through posts. “That shit just doesn’t work, you know? Not really. It’d be like sending Scott to camp to make him gay. How well would that work?”

“Dude, you’re preaching to the choir here,” Stiles says.

Erica lets out a snort of laughter. “God, Peter was _dirty_ ,” she says. “I would’ve liked him. Check this out, it’s from the ‘how to keep your relationships secret’ section. ‘My advice is _don’t_ let your boyfriend call home while his dick is in your mouth.’”

“You shouldn’t do that anyway,” Danny mumbles. “It makes conversations with parents awkward.”

“I know, right?!” Erica says, and holds her hand up for a high-five, which Danny gives her.

“Maybe the boyfriend in question was just really bad at giving head?” Stiles suggests, and then begins to snigger. “Oh, God – remember the time we – ”

“And then . . . and then!” Erica says, but can’t finish the sentence because she’s already laughing too hard.

Derek glares at them over the top of his computer. “Oh my God, don’t tell me about your sexcapades.”

Stiles bites his lip to try to stop laughing, clears his throat, and devotes his attention to the laptop. “Oh, hey, here’s one of the hecklers. ‘You could just kill yourself and spare us all your queer drama’. Nice.”

“Did Mac give us the real names for the banned users?” Danny asks. “Does your dad _want_ the real names?”

“She gave us the IP addresses,” Stiles says. “I don’t think she had actually ever bothered to track down who they were. She just banned them and had done. Frankly I doubt any of the banned users are the culprits, but it’s probably worth tracking them down just in case.”

Danny nods. “I should be able to track it to a physical address, unless it’s changed.”

“Yeah. One thing at a time. First of all we’re looking for patterns. Hopefully someone that both Peter and Marcos talked to a lot. Which is going to be tough. Peter hopped all over these damned boards and Marcos didn’t post very much.”

“Make a list of the people Marcos talked to,” Derek suggests. “Then we can compare that list to the longer list of the people Peter talked to.”

“Yeah, but let’s try to limit it to regular conversations or particularly meaningful interaction, or else we’ll be here all night,” Stiles says.

Erica cackles again. “Like sports aren’t gay? A bunch of grown men chasing down little balls, waving their sticks in the air!”

“Ah, golf,” Danny says.

“Or lacrosse,” Stiles says, with a snort. “Or hockey. Or baseball.”

“We get the idea,” Derek tells him.

“If that’s what he thinks is a ‘little ball’, then he’s in for some disappointment later in life,” Danny points out.

“Yeah, well, he was definitely sexually active,” Erica says. “That or he watched a _lot_ of porn.”

“Both could be true,” Danny says.

“Given the number of tips he’s offering on how to fuck someone up the ass, I sure as hell _hope_ he’s got some actual experience, or his Dear Abby routine is a little uncalled for.”

“Here, link me, I can tell you whether or not any of them are accurate,” Danny says, and Erica laughs but sends him a link. Five minutes later, Danny says, “Yep, the guy knew what he was doing.”

“Glad we’ve cleared that up,” Derek grumbles.

“Hey, if Peter was sexually active, that’s important,” Stiles says. “It means he had sexual partners. They would be suspects. So if he says anything that could be considered even remotely identifying, send it to me. Hell, that alone could be a reason to kill him, if someone was trying to stay in the closet but Peter inadvertently outed him.”

“And then the guy went and killed Marcos because . . .?”

“Hey, I don’t have all the answers,” Stiles says. “Right now I don’t have any answers. I’ve just got theories.”

“Fair enough,” Derek says. He shakes his head and says, “Why did sports even come up?”

“They were talking about stupid things their parents had said,” Erica says. “In Peter’s case, they were trying to blame his gayness on the fact that he had quit sports when he was a kid. Apparently he thought they were stupid.”

“If sports keep someone from being gay, I’ve got a lot to answer for,” Danny says. Stiles lets out a snort of agreement. “Jesus, where do people get these ideas? Here’s a girl saying that her parents won’t let her get a haircut. A fucking _haircut_. Because, quote, they don’t want her to look like a dyke.”

Stiles starts snickering. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t laugh, but I’m just reminded of this thing I saw once where a woman asked ‘how can I tell if my son is gay’ and someone went off on this thing about a baking soda volcano and then at the end it was like ‘if your son is too busy sucking cock to care, he might be gay’.”

“Oh, God,” Danny says, laughing. “You’ll have to link me. I’ll send it to my parents. They’ll think it’s hilarious.”

“That’s it, I’m done,” Erica declares. “All this reading about sex is making me horny. Stiles, fix it.”

“Yes, ma’m,” Stiles says. “Uh, guys, you might want to – ”

“Move to a separate hemisphere?” Derek asks, sounding grouchy.

“We’re not _nearly_ as loud as Scott and Allison – ”

Danny just smirks and gets up, grabbing Derek by the forearm and hauling him to his feet. “C’mon, let’s go out back and turn the stereo on. Loudly.”

“Have fun!” Stiles says, trying to wave around Erica, who is crawling into his lap, and Derek just shakes his head as he departs, but there’s a fond little smile on his face.

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

“Wow, that looks exciting,” Logan says, rolling his eyes at the police reports that Veronica is poring over. “Unless that’s one of those funny collections of the 911 calls because people ran out of beer and stuff, in which case I take it all back and you should share.”

“It’s police reports from Beacon Hills,” Veronica says.

“Of course it is,” Logan says, flopping into a chair. “What else would it be. So I was down at Woody Goodman’s office today – ”

“You wouldn’t believe how much stuff has happened to Stiles,” Veronica says, interrupting without meaning to. “I swear, it seems like half the reports from this town have his name on them somehow. And it’s not just him. All his friends pop up here and there. Not just big stuff like the shooting in the woods, either.”

Logan cracks open a can of soda and says, “Now must be when you tell me all about it.”

“It starts about two years ago,” Veronica says, oblivious to his lack of enthusiasm. “While the murders that Peter Hale committed were going on. A 911 call to the local high school dance where Lydia Martin was injured. That’s the same night Kate Argent was killed and Peter Hale disappeared.”

“Mm hm,” Logan says, picking up Veronica’s phone and looking to see what she’s been up to. “Lydia’s the redhead, right?”

“Right,” Veronica says. “Then only a couple weeks later is where Sheriff Stilinski was nearly killed. A couple weeks after that was when Gerard Argent was arrested for the attempted murder, along with a couple of his friends. So all that seems to be part of the same incident, right? And you can kind of write that off. Then, only about a month later, there’s an arrest record for Roger Lahey.”

“Wow,” Logan says. “So many connections . . . who the fuck is that?”

“That’s Isaac’s father,” Veronica says. “He was arrested for assaulting an officer and resisting arrest.”

“And this obviously ties back into Stiles’ terrible, dark secrets,” Logan says. “Speaking of which, someone sent a threatening video to Woody Goodman – ”

“Then everything is quiet for a few months before the shooting in the woods. So Chris Argent, that’s Allison’s dad, had friends in from out of town, and they just happened to shoot at his daughter and a bunch of her friends. Which . . . is weird, okay, but I guess I can buy it.”

Logan sighs and takes a drink of his soda, looking through the notes Veronica’s been making.

“Then only a week later, there’s a 911 call about an animal attack in the woods and a guy named Tyrone O’Brien is killed,” Veronica continues. “Which wouldn’t be weird except that _he_ wasn’t a resident of Beacon Hills either. Research shows his last known address was the same as Vivien Nazario, who was the person who was arrested in connection with the shooting and then released. And get this – then _she_ disappeared about a week later. Hasn’t been heard of since.”

“But what does it all mean, dear?” Logan asks. He sits down at his own computer and starts typing.

“For the rest of the summer, things were quiet, you know, just a few standard police reports here and there,” Veronica says. “Then there’s that whole lawsuit thing. Stiles is in a car accident in mid-October – ”

“Dark forces at work,” Logan agrees, nodding sagely.

“Which looks like it was pretty serious, but Stiles was treated and released at the hospital without major injuries. Actually there’s a little blurb in the paper about it. He got some good press because his brakes failed and he decided to steer his Jeep off the road rather than risk hitting someone else – ”

“And this is the kid you think is the bad guy,” Logan says.

“Then who should turn up in the police reports a week later but Danny Mahealani, who fell off the balcony of his house while he was trying to do a back flip and was _also_ treated and released – ”

“Okay, you are really reaching now.”

“Really? He fell from the third floor, you’d think he would have had serious injuries.”

“Whatever happened to the werewolf theory? I liked the werewolf theory.”

“Logan, be serious,” Veronica says impatiently. She feels annoyed at herself for ever even considering that possibility. The violence on the beach had bothered her more than she wants to admit, and it had really affected her judgment. “Werewolves aren’t real. I’m trying to get some actual work done.”

“On the topic of work, Woody Goodman is going to be looking for a new intern soon if he doesn’t stop giving me manly shoulder squeezes. Dude seriously needs to learn about boundaries – ”

“Logan, focus, this is important,” Veronica says, and Logan throws his hands up in the air in defeat. “Here’s where things get really weird. Towards the middle of November, there was this _huge_ slew of police reports. I guess there was some contagious virus going around that caused episodes of pain and black-outs, so there’s all these reports of car accidents and a ton of 911 calls about people collapsing on the streets and people trying to steal oxycodone from pharmacies and stuff.”

“Okay. And what fascinating police reports do Stiles and his friends have?”

“None,” Veronica says. “Not _one_ of them is mentioned this entire time. Isn’t that weird? The one time it would make perfect sense for them to crop up in the police reports, and they’re all conspicuously absent.”

Logan sighs and continues leafing through the website he’s looking at. “Anything else?”

“About a week later, Adrian Harris drops his lawsuit against Sheriff Stilinski. And he doesn’t do it quietly, either. There’s a lot of fanfare and a public apology. There’s a picture of the guy giving a statement and he looks like _crap_. It makes me wonder if he got pressured into it somehow.”

“You know, back when you first looked up that lawsuit, you said he seemed like a complete douchebag.”

“Yeah, and douchebags aren’t known for admitting they were wrong and issuing public apologies.”

“Touché,” Logan says. “Anything else?”

“It gets quiet after that for a while. One report of gunfire at the Argent household in June, and that’s it.”

“Okay.” Logan spins around. “So if I told you that I had maybe solved one of the mysteries for you, would you actually let me finish telling you about my day as Woody Goodman’s intern?”

Veronica’s eyes narrow. “Which mystery?”

Logan looks at her. “Really, Veronica?”

She sighs. “Okay. I’m sorry. I’m being . . . I guess I have some tunnel vision today.” She abandons her computer and walks over to settle in his lap. “Tell me about your day.”

“Woody is a sleazeball and his secretary has no sense of humor,” Logan says. “Seriously, she didn’t think my ‘the Bible burned my hand’ joke was funny at _all_. I was going through the incorporation mail to sort into pro and con – ”

“My boyfriend was sorting mail?” Veronica asks. “Nope, can’t picture it.”

He gives her a kiss on the cheek. “And someone sent Woody this creepy video of the inside of his house while they were sitting there eating dinner. He asked your dad to look into it. There, story told. Was that so hard?”

“I’m sorry,” Veronica says, resting her head against his shoulder. “You know how I get when I have a mystery.”

“Yeah, I just wish I knew what the hell you’re actually trying to solve,” Logan says. He spins around so they’re facing his computer. “Okay. These paintings of Derek’s you’re talking about. I’d seen them before. My mom . . .” His voice falters a little, as it often does when he talks about his mother. “She left me her art collection, remember? She used to take me to museums on the weekend. Drive down to San Diego or up to LA. So these pictures of Stiles and the wolves? They’re his friends. See?” He pulls up one of the most recent paintings, with nine wolves in it. “That big, dark one there must be Derek himself. You’ve got a blondish one, that’s Erica. A reddish one, that’s Lydia. The brown curly one is probably Isaac, the darker brown, kind of compact one is probably Scott. These other two dark ones I’m not sure about – they’re Boyd and Danny but I don’t know which one’s which. And the cream-colored one is Allison.”

“Mac says that’s actually a wolfdog, not a wolf,” Veronica says.

Logan gives a little shrug. “It gets crazier. If you go back to the earlier ones – he actually adds in the wolves as they make friends with Stiles. I looked through your notes. In the beginning it’s just Lydia, Allison, Derek, and Scott. The next one has Isaac in it – that one came out right after that police report you were talking about where his dad was arrested. Maybe that’s how they got to know him. Erica’s added during the spring, then Boyd in the summer, and Danny the next autumn – around the time he fell from his balcony.”

Veronica purses her lips. “Okay. So what does that mean?”

“It means that Derek likes to paint his boyfriend and his friends,” Logan says. “That’s it. That’s what it means.”

“As wolves.”

“Why is that any weirder that Vincent Van Gogh’s sunflowers? Or melting clocks? Or cubism? It’s fucking _art_ , Veronica. It doesn’t have to make sense. But it doesn’t have to mean anything, either.”

Veronica sighs. “Okay. Fine. But I still think it’s weird that Peter Hale and Vivien Nazario both completely disappeared from Beacon Hills without a trace. And I want to know what happened to them.”

“Okay,” Logan says. “At least that’s an honest to God mystery you can try to solve. I support you one hundred percent. What’s our next move?”

“I think I’m going to drive up to Beacon Hills this weekend,” Veronica says. “See if I can find anyone who can give me some answers.”

“This weekend?” Logan asks. “I have to work at Goodman’s office.”

“I’ll be fine,” Veronica says. “I’ll be careful, I promise.”

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

The news isn’t as good as it could be, although Stiles supposes that it isn’t all bad, either. There were only two people on the SHIP website that both Marcos and Peter talked to regularly. One seems to be a friend of Peter’s that he joked around with a lot, and sometimes Marcos would join in. Another was a girl who was having a lot of trouble with depression and suicidal thoughts, that they both regularly comforted.

Stiles doesn’t know who either of them are, and it doesn’t seem likely that either of them would have had any reason to kill Peter and Marcos. But he gives the usernames to his father regardless, so he can try to track them down. If nothing else, the girl obviously needs psychological help. Hopefully this will help her get it.

Danny uses the IP addresses to track down three of the hecklers who were harder to get rid of, and they give that information to Sheriff Stilinski as well. In Stiles’ mind, those are the better bet. But he still isn’t one hundred percent sure of the theory. It seems like there must be some larger connection that they’re missing. But beyond the SHIP website, Peter and Marcos had nothing in common.

None of his contacts are familiar with any sort of supernatural creature that might make a cut on the back of someone’s neck. Deaton can think of several reasons why someone might, and sends them over, but other than that, Stiles comes up blank. Ravinder says it looks vaguely familiar but can’t place it, and says he’ll let Stiles know if he remembers what it might be from. Either way, that’s not a confirmation that it’s a supernatural creature.

With all of that a dead end, he turns to a different problem: Veronica. While her friends are still being just as friendly as ever, she hasn’t spoken to him in days. Whenever she looks at him, he can see the unease in her eyes. He can’t smell it, but the rest of the pack can. It bothers him because he was starting to think of her as a friend, a good friend, the kind of friend he might actually invite into the pack someday, if he could break the news of the supernatural to her without breaking _her_. She’s smart, and funny, and someone who understands him.

“Maybe I should just try talking to her,” he says to Derek, who shrugs a little because talking to people isn’t really his forte.

So he finds her the next day at school while she’s at her locker between classes, chatting with Logan. He isn’t sure he wants to have the conversation in front of Logan, but then again Veronica is rarely by herself. If he waits to get her alone, he might be waiting another week. “Hey,” he says, walking up to her with Derek trailing behind on his leash.

Veronica smiles at him, a smile that’s a little too bright to be anything but forced. “Hi,” she says.

“You’ve been avoiding me,” he says.

“Guilty,” she says, with a little wince.

“Mind if I ask why?”

Veronica sighs. “I’m sorry. It’s just – the fight. I’m not . . . I’m not so good with violence. Not after what happened with Lilly, and with Aaron Echolls that night.”

It’s a reasonable response, and that makes him hate it even more. He also notices that Logan is arching his eyebrows at her as if to say ‘oh really?’ “Look, I’m sorry if that freaked you out,” Stiles says. “Maybe I took it a little too far. I was just trying to make a point, that it’s a bad idea to mess with me. Remember what I said the first day we met? That I don’t back down if trouble comes looking for me.”

“It’s more than that,” Logan says, casually leaning against the locker. “Your eyes did this weird thing and turned red and now she thinks you’re demonically possessed.”

Veronica gives Logan a look like she wants to skin him.

“Whoa, did they?” Stiles asks, covering his surprise with fake excitement. “Cool! Did you get it on film?”

“Yeah, actually,” Veronica says. She takes out her phone and goes into her photos, pulling up the still she’s made of the frame where Stiles’ eyes turned crimson. She holds it out for him to see. “So?”

“That’s neat,” Stiles says. “Some weird trick of the firelight, maybe.”

“Yeah,” Veronica says, tucking her phone away. “That’s what everyone seems to think.”

“When you come up with a better explanation, you let me know,” Stiles says casually.

“I’ll do that,” she says.

“Challenge accepted!” Logan declares. To Stiles, he adds, “Look, whatever crimes you’ve committed in the past, thought about committing, are planning to commit in the future, have perpetrated in a past life or will inflict upon others in a future life, just confess now. Because I’d like to get laid again before this life is over.”

Stiles lets out a snort of laughter. “I’m sorry if I’m negatively affecting your sex life.” He turns to Veronica and says, “Let’s make a deal. Tell me what you really want to know. Ask me one question – any question. I will either answer it honestly or just refuse to answer – I swear I won’t lie to you. If I can answer it, you’ll let this go. If I can’t, we’ll go our separate ways and I won’t bother you again. Deal?”

Veronica narrows her eyes at him. Then she nods. “Deal.”

“Shoot.”

“What really happened to Peter Hale?”

Stiles studies her for a few minutes. Then he gives a little nod and says, “It’s been fun, Veronica.”

Then he turns and walks away.

 

~ ~ ~ ~


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, let's check in with some people we've missed...

The drive up to Beacon Hills is a long one, so Veronica has plenty of time to decide who she wants to talk to and what sort of cover she’s going to present. She wants to avoid the parents when at all possible, but Chris and Victoria Argent are a must. There’s no way she can get around talking to them; they were too involved. She wishes that Gerard Argent was still alive, so she could talk to him, but he isn’t and there’s no evidence of foul play in his death.

She stops halfway there to grab a quick bite to eat and phone to check in with Logan. He’s disappointed because the threatening video turned out to be some lame former household worker with a grudge, rather than another, more exciting story. He grumbles about how smarmy Goodman is and reminds her that she promised to be careful. She promises again.

Adrian Harris seems to be her best bet. If he was coerced into that apology, he might have reason to talk. But nobody answers the door at his house. She peeks into the garage and sees that it’s empty. Of course, if the students had been shipped off, it’s possible that the teachers had gotten alternate jobs elsewhere as well. She decides to do a little research and see if she can find out where.

But ten minutes on her laptop leads her to an odd conclusion. There’s no information _anywhere_ on the Beacon Hills high school being shut down because of asbestos – or for any reason at all, for that matter. She frowns and plugs the address into her GPS. It’s Saturday, so the parking lot is mostly empty – but not entirely. There are some sports teams on the field. And there’s certainly no sign anywhere that renovations might be going on.

She knows that some teachers will work on Saturdays, either to grade papers or help students with remedial classes or attend club meetings. So she parks and goes into the school to see if Harris is there. All the science classes are grouped together and the rooms are easily identifiable by the equipment inside. Harris is indeed there, sitting at a desk with a stack of papers and a sour expression on his face. And strangest of all, there’s a dog there. A smallish, curly haired dog in a little blue vest, sitting by the desk. It perks up when she enters and noses Harris’ hand before he seems to have realized she’s there. “Can I help you?” he asks.

“You must be Mr. Harris, right?” she asks, smiling, hoping to put him at ease. “My name’s Veronica. I’m a psychology student at Hearst College.”

Harris gives her a somewhat skeptical look. “And . . .?”

“I’m doing my thesis on . . .” Veronica falters for a moment. The lie she had prepared to tell, that she was researching the use of service animals in schools, seems a little odd in light of the fact that Harris now has a service dog himself. But she doesn’t have a better lie prepared, and that _was_ what his lawsuit was about. “On service animals for PTSD.” He looks surprised for a moment. “I read about your lawsuit against the Stilinski family last year, and I . . .”

“I have nothing to say about that lawsuit,” Harris says, slapping a notebook shut. “Everything I have to say about it was published in my statement at the time.”

“It seems odd that you dropped it so suddenly,” Veronica says.

“I did so on the advice of my lawyers.”

“So the Stilinski family had nothing to do with it?”

Harris gathers up his papers in a sweeping motion. “As I said, I have nothing to say about the lawsuit. And now I’ll have to bid you a good day.” He shoves the papers into his briefcase and heads for the door.

“Is there a reason you don’t want to discuss it?” Veronica asks, following him. The dog is padding along at his heels.

Harris keeps walking, increasing his pace. “It was a foolish, vindictive lawsuit filed by a foolish, vindictive man. Is it really so surprising that I have no desire to discuss that chapter of my life?”

“It’s a little surprising that you have a service dog,” Veronica says. “May I ask what he’s for?”

“You may ask questions until you turn blue in the face,” Harris says. They’re reaching a crowd of teenagers in athletic gear as they exit a side door in the school. “That will not change the fact that I have nothing to say.”

“Did the Stilinski family pressure you into dropping that lawsuit?” Veronica asks, aware she’s running out of time, that in a minute he’ll be in his car and the interview will be over. He says more than he intends to with his body language and his tight, pinched face. There’s no time for delicacy. “Were you afraid that you would disappear like Peter Hale and Vivien Nazario?”

Harris walks in silence for another moment and then reaches his car, an older model with a bumper sticker that Veronica can’t help but admire. ‘Imagination is more important than knowledge.’ Then he turns to her and says abruptly, “Young lady, you are barking so far up the wrong tree that you are in the stratosphere. This conversation is over.” He gets in his car and backs out of the space with a squeal of tires.

Veronica swears in frustration. She heads back into the school, thinking that maybe she can find one of Stiles’ classmates to talk to. But before she can approach them, a teenager in jeans and a T-shirt walks over to her. He’s handsome, in a sullen, angry sort of way. “Hey,” he says. “Were you asking Harris about Stilinski?”

“Yes,” she says, smiling brightly. “I’m a psychology student doing my thesis on – ”

“Yeah, whatever,” he says. “You want the scoop on Stilinski? Then come with me.”

Veronica is a little suspicious of this, but she has her taser, and she’s probably done stupider things. So she follows him out to a shiny silver sports car and gets in. “So, my name’s Veronica,” she says.

He gives a little grunt. “Jackson.”

Jackson. It’s familiar. She’s heard them mention him a few times. A friend of Danny’s, but none of the others particularly like him, especially not Stiles and Scott. “So what’s the scoop?” she asks.

“You’ll find out,” he says, which doesn’t make her feel any better. But he doesn’t try to drive her out of town and leave her in a ditch. They’re only in the car for a few minutes before they pull up to Beacon Hills Veterinary Clinic. Then he parks the car and goes inside. “Dr. Deaton?” he calls out.

“Hello, Jackson.” A middle-aged black man comes out of the back and gives Veronica a questioning look. “How can I help you, miss?”

“I’m . . . not sure,” Veronica says, wondering why Jackson had brought her here. She switches up her story. “I’m a psychology student doing my paper on urban legends. I was doing some research here about the Hale family and the Stilinski family. Jackson heard me ask about them and thought you could give me the scoop.”

“Ah, I see.” He smiles at her. “Jackson, why don’t you get to work? It’s time for Peaches and Sully to be walked.”

“’Kay,” Jackson grunts, and heads into the back.

“Jackson is my assistant here,” Deaton says, still smiling. “I’ve lived here a long time, and I was friends with the Hale family. That’s probably why he brought you here. He’s nicer than he seems. And he does like a pretty face. So, what exactly is your thesis on?”

Veronica is a little taken aback by Deaton’s warm attitude; it’s such a sudden shift from what she’s been getting. “Uh, well, there’s this online mythos around Beacon Hills involving a werewolf pack, and how it explains some of what’s happened here. I figured I would come get the rational explanations for what happened and use it to disprove the legend. I’m working off some other famous urban legends with mundane explanations, like the vanishing Roanoke colony, the Hopkinsville Goblin case, and the Ghost Ship Mary Celeste . . .”

“You’ve done your research!” Deaton says, obviously impressed. “Why Beacon Hills?”

“Well, partly because it’s local, but mostly because it hasn’t been solved,” Veronica says. “I’m referring mostly to the disappearance of Peter Hale.”

“Ah, but the disappearance of Peter Hale has been solved,” Deaton says. “He left town under his own steam after finishing his work here.”

“I’ve read about the murders,” Veronica says. “But didn’t he kill at least one person who hadn’t been involved in the fire?”

“His nurse, yes,” Deaton says, and gives a little shrug. “Popular theory is that she knew too much, as they say. Or tried to stop him. Yes, he killed her the same night that he killed Kate Argent, attacked Lydia Martin, and abducted the sheriff’s son.”

Veronica is taken aback. That hasn’t been mentioned in any of the police reports. “Abducted? I hadn’t – ”

“Of course not. It never made the news. The Sheriff, of course, threw his entire department behind finding his son. And so they did. But Peter Hale wisely left town.”

“Why would he have kidnapped Stiles?”

Deaton smiles widely. “So you do know him.”

Veronica freezes, and then inwardly curses. Deaton had tricked her. He hadn’t used Stiles’ name, and the nickname had never appeared in any of the papers. She could only know the nickname if she had met him. “Okay, yes, I – ”

“You aren’t trying to solve the mystery of Peter Hale,” Deaton says, his voice almost kind. “You’re trying to solve the mystery of Stiles Stilinski. And I’m sorry to tell you this, but you aren’t going to find anyone here who will help you.”

“So there is a mystery to solve,” Veronica says.

“You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t think so, and I doubt I could convince you otherwise at this point,” Deaton says. “You’ve clearly done a great deal of research. But I would be very careful, if I were you. People in Beacon Hills don’t like people who ask questions.”

“I’m noticing that,” Veronica says. “But people who give the Stilinski family trouble tend to disappear.”

“So they do,” Deaton says. “But you’re asking the wrong question. You shouldn’t be asking why they disappear or what happened to them. You should be asking why they were bothering the Stilinski family to begin with.”

“Okay,” Veronica says. “Then I’ll ask that question. Why?”

“Because the monsters in the dark will always want to put out the light.” Deaton holds his hand out to the door. “Good luck with your paper, Veronica.”

“Thanks,” Veronica says, and turns to go. It’s not until she’s outside that she realizes she had never told Dr. Deaton her name.

Going back in seems pointless, however. She’s uncomfortably aware that Deaton learned a lot more from her than she had learned from him. She curses a little and then realizes she has no way to get back to where she had left her car. She’s wondering if this town even _has_ a taxi service when Jackson comes back outside, looking just as sullen as earlier. “I’ll drive you back to the school.”

“Thanks,” Veronica says, and gets in the car. She tries asking a question or two – even one about the weather – but gets no answers. Jackson says nothing until they pull up next to her Le Sabre.

“I hate Stilinski,” he says, and Veronica perks up. This could be interesting. “He’s a jackass. He stole my girlfriend. He’s better at lacrosse than I am. He doesn’t know how to fucking shut up. But he also saved my fucking life. Don’t fuck with him. You’ll get way more than you’re asking for.”

“What do you – ”

“Get out,” Jackson says.

Veronica sets her jaw but does so. Jackson pulls out of the parking lot in his shiny silver sports car, leaving her fuming in the dust. There has to be _someone_ in Beacon Hills who’s willing to talk to her.

She tries the Argent house. The door is answered by a teenager with a mop of unruly dark hair and thin framed glasses. He blinks at her guilelessly and says, “Are you selling something?”

“No,” Veronica says, giving him a disarming smile. “Actually, I’m looking for Chris or Victoria Argent. Can I speak with one of them?”

“They aren’t home,” he replies.

“Well, maybe you can help me out,” Veronica says. She hasn’t seen anything about Allison having any younger siblings, so she’s a little confused by who this kid is and why he’s there. “Do you live here?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“I’m a psychology student doing my thesis on urban legends,” Veronica says. “See, there’s this online mythos surrounding Beacon Hills and how there’s a werewolf pack here, and that explains some of the disappearances and stuff that have happened around here. Do you know anything about that?”

The teenager is frowning at her. “Maybe,” he says, and shuffles nervously. “I think you’d better talk to my uncle.” He calls over his shoulder. “Uncle Chris? There’s someone here to see you.”

“I thought you said he wasn’t home,” Veronica says.

“So we’re both liars, so what?” he asks.

Veronica frowns and is about to come up with a clever retort when a man walks up behind the teenager. He’s a middle-aged man with a tall frame and a fair amount of stubble. She gets through, “Hi, I’m a psychology student doing my thesis on urban legends – ” before he elbows past the boy and slams the door in her face without a word.

“Or not,” she says, feeling miffed.

She hadn’t planned to talk to any of the other parents, because she hadn’t really known what she could possibly ask them. But now she has a new angle to play. The school obviously isn’t closed due to asbestos – and yet, there all the kids were, down in Neptune. So what had the parents been told about where their children were going, and why? Obviously, the kids hadn’t all simply disappeared, and they weren’t using fake names, either.

So she pulls up the phone listings for Beacon Hills, knowing she might not be able to find everyone. There are eighteen listings for Martin, seven for Reyes, and three for Boyd. But only one Mahealani, one McCall, and one Lahey. One of the Boyds listed is Vernon, and she knows that the Boyd she knows is Vernon. It seems likely that he was named after his father. She plugs all the addresses into her GPS.

Nobody answers at the Mahealani house. Boyd’s door is answered by a fourteen year old boy who says his parents aren’t home, and Veronica doesn’t want to grill him. Roger Lahey opens the door and answers with an angry, “Don’t know, don’t care,” when she tries to ask about Isaac’s whereabouts. Scott’s mother gives her a sympathetic smile and a “I’m sorry, honey, I can’t help you”. Veronica cross-references to figure out which Martin and Reyes houses to go to. Lydia’s mother is unlisted, however. She finds the Reyes household, and a middle-aged woman answers the door and says the exact same thing as Scott’s mother. Veronica is pretty sure someone warned her that she was coming.

Frustrated beyond belief but now more certain than ever that these people are hiding something, Veronica looks to see if Derek Hale’s number is listed, thinking maybe she’ll check out his place. The Stilinski house is silent, empty, and completely normal. She doesn’t dare break in.

Derek Hale owns a surprising amount of property in town: a studio, a warehouse downtown, and a huge swath of land bordering on the preserve. She finds a number of housing and building permits filed for that land the previous year, and presumes he built a house on the territory, so that’s where she goes.

There’s a gate barring the road, and it’s locked with a heavy chain and a pad lock, so it’s obvious to Veronica that she won’t be driving any further. She pulls her car off to the side of the road, gets out, and slings her bag over her shoulder. The fence is too high to climb, but she notices a gap in it. Right next to a ‘no trespassing’ sign. She doesn’t let it bother her. The owners of the property are out of town, after all, and God knew she’d broken and entered worse places than this. So she tucks her body through the gap and starts down the road. The forest is quiet, a little too quiet, a little spooky. It’s probably just nerves. She’s a city girl. It’s been a long time since she was somewhere so unreservedly _wild_. Suddenly she wishes she had taken Mac up on her offer to go camping the previous summer. It doesn’t help that the sun has set now, and the forest is way darker than anywhere in Neptune ever gets.

She’s not sure what she’s expecting, but another fence isn’t it. This one is sturdier, wires instead of chain link, and the low hum that’s sure to mean electricity. An electric fence. In the middle of the forest. She’s just standing there with no idea what that could possibly mean when a rough voice asks, “What are you doing here?” and she turns. It’s the same man she saw at the Argent house, dressed in jeans and a leather jacket. He’s holding a rifle but it’s not pointed at her.

Veronica forces herself to smile and knows it looks a little nervous, but that’s okay. Nervous is appropriate when alone with a man holding a gun of any sort. “Still a psychology student, sir. Still researching the birth of urban legends.”

“Cut the crap,” Chris says. “You’re trespassing.”

“Well, yes, but I have no intention of damaging anything because I know how to look with my eyes and not my hands, so it’s not really a capital crime. Besides, aren’t you trespassing, too?”

“No.” Chris looks sour. “I’m looking after the property at the request of the owner, while he’s out of town.” He gestures with the rifle, still not pointing it at her, but it’s obviously meant to be a threat. “Now tell me why you’re really here. Are you a hunter? What family are you with?”

Veronica takes a step back. Then another. “Uh, you’re the one with a rifle. Why are you asking me if I’m a hunter?”

Chris’ brow furrows slightly. “Okay. But you still haven’t told me what you’re doing here.” His phone gives a little chime and he glances down at it. “Any time now, blondie.”

“I did tell you the truth. I wanted to see the property. Check it out. ‘The Mysteries of Beacon Hills’.” She holds up her hands and wiggles her fingers, trying to play it all up like she’s just trying to get an impressive grade on a cool assignment, but that she didn’t really believe any of the ‘urban legend’ part of it. Although this guy was really not making her feel any more secure in how normal everything was.

“Uh huh.” Chris folds his arms over his chest. “You do realize that Stiles knows you’re here, right?”

First her eyes narrow. Then her arm drops to her side to be closer to her bag and her taser if need be. “And how would he know that?”

“Well, for one thing, I called and told him,” Chris says. “Deaton told him. I’m willing to bet Jackson told him. Secondly, see that?” he asks, and Veronica instinctively turns to look. “Yeah, that’s a camera. You really thought a property with an electric fence wouldn’t also have a surveillance system? He knew you were here the minute you put your foot on the property.”

Veronica bites on her lower lip. She’s caught and she knows it, but she isn’t going to go down without a fight. “So,” she says brightly. “Hunters?”

“Really?” Chris says. “Your response to that is to try to pry even deeper?” Surprising Veronica, he lets out a chuckle. “I can sort of see why Stiles’ warning about you basically consisted of ‘she’s like a prettier version of me’. Now. You’re on private property. Are you going to let me escort you off private property, or do I need to call the police?”

“If I let you escort me off, will you answer my question?” She figures she may as well try to bargain.

“How about ‘if you let me escort you off the premises, I won’t tell Stiles you kept pushing for answers’?”

She makes a pouting face and falls into silence. That’s as close to an agreement as he’ll get. He gestures again, and she starts walking back towards the car. Apparently, he wasn’t lying about having been asked to look after the property – he has a key to the padlock on the outside gate. He opens it and lets her through, locks it after her. Then he turns and looks at her. “You should stay away from this,” he says. “What happened here is done and over with. There’s no mystery to solve anymore.”

“That’s a lie and we both know it, Mr. Are-You-a-Hunter.”

Chris shakes his head. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” he says, and points to her car. “I’m going to follow you out of town.”

Veronica unlocks and opens her door, gets in the car, and slams the door shut with prejudice. True to Chris’ words, his headlights are in her rearview until she’s at least twenty minutes out of Beacon Hills. Then he takes a turn-off and vanishes. She considers going back just to spite him, but figures that would be petty. So instead she drives back to Neptune, thinking things over. She feels like she’s learned a lot, but instead of getting answers, all she has are more questions. Why the electric fence? Why had Derek specifically asked someone to look after the property while they were gone? (And on that note, why an Argent? If the multi-generational feud had any merit to it, Chris Argent was the _last_ person Derek should have chosen to keep watch on the Hale family property, yet there he was with keys and everything.) If the school in Beacon Hills wasn’t really closed, what the hell were all those teenagers doing in Neptune?

It’s late when she gets back, so she goes to bed and sleeps restlessly. She’s promised her dad she’ll clean up around the office since the next day is Sunday. He’s there for a half hour of donuts and coffee before he gets an urgent tip and leaves in a hurry. Logan shows up around noon, says he missed her, and tries to persuade her to make out with him in the bathroom instead of doing her work or telling him about what happened in Beacon Hills. She’s tempted to give in – filing and dusting is not her forte – when the door opens with a jingle and she shoves him onto the sofa with a ‘don’t misbehave in front of clients’ sort of look.

But it’s not a client. It’s Stiles, with Derek behind him. The older man is as stone-faced as ever, but Stiles is _pissed_ , she’s seen him with that same fidgety tension before, usually when there have been homophobes or assholes around. He foregoes pleasantries and launches straight into, “Why were you snooping around in Beacon Hills?”

Veronica considers what to say, but in the end there’s really no answer besides an honest answer. “I don’t like mysteries. And I don’t believe that Peter Hale is sipping pina coladas on a beach somewhere.”

“Oh, is that so?” Stiles asks. “You solve one murder and suddenly you’re Nancy fucking Drew? How is what happened to Peter Hale _any_ of your fucking business?”

Veronica opens her mouth and closes it, then settles for looking mutinous. She just doesn’t have the words for how she wants to trust Stiles so badly but something is wrong. Until she knows what it is, she won’t feel safe. But Stiles is right. Peter isn’t her business. She has no excuses and no reasons, so she stays silent.

“Did it ever occur to you that maybe, just _maybe_ , everyone who was involved knows what happened to Peter and they’re all just much fucking happier letting it rest?” Stiles continues to rant furiously. “And that maybe the only thing you’re doing is making a bunch of people really upset? That – ”

Derek moves around from behind Stiles so he’s almost standing in front of the younger man. While he’s very much in Stiles’ view, he’s also careful not to cut off the line of sight between Stiles and Veronica. Stiles’ temper is just climbing and Derek has no intention of challenging the wolf instinct that he knows is riding right underneath the surface. “Stiles.” He reaches out a hand to Stiles’ shoulder, but stops himself halfway there. “Can you just . . . let me talk to her.” He can feel how angry Stiles is, feel that surge of protective instincts, that overriding need to defend the pack, reverberating down the bond. He lowers his voice so it’s barely audible. “You like her. Let me try. Okay?”

Stiles only barely manages to hold back a snarl. He knows that Derek is right and that he’s dangerously close to saying something he’ll regret later. “Fine. Fine!” He turns and slams his way out of the office. Everything is quiet for a moment, and then Logan gets up and follows him without a word, giving Derek and Veronica some privacy. Derek lets his arm drop and hopes that Logan either doesn’t try to talk to Stiles, or if he does, he isn’t stupid enough to try to touch him. He turns and looks over at Veronica to see what, if anything, she’s going to say or do now.

Seeing his gaze on her, feeling inexplicably stung, Veronica says, “What?”

Derek shoves his hands into his pockets. He’s learned it makes him less intimidating. “I take my privacy pretty seriously. That’s why we have all the security measures on the property. Stiles . . . doesn’t like it when people upset me.”

“I wasn’t trying to upset anybody,” Veronica says. “I just want – I just _need_ to know the truth. Something about you guys doesn’t add up, and I can’t just let it go. I don’t know why not but I can’t.”

Derek looks up at the ceiling in clear exasperation. “And what is knowing our secrets going to gain you?”

“I don’t know,” Veronica says. “I don’t. But the last time people kept secrets from me, my best friend was murdered.”

Derek’s jaw clenches for a few moments. “You’ll stop snooping if you find out what happened to Peter?”

“I . . . is it okay to say I’ll try? Because I can’t just . . . stop being who I am. I know. I’ve tried!”

Derek snorts. He can actually understand that. “I think I actually believe you.” Her heartbeat had been steady, a little fast overall, but steady. “So you really want to know what happened to Uncle Peter in the end?”

“Yes, for fuck’s sake, I really want to know.”

Derek’s silent for a long minute. His hands come out of his pockets, fingers tapping at his thighs while he martials his thoughts. He eventually leans over and steals a sheet of legal paper off the desk and starts folding it and worrying at it. He doesn’t look at her while he speaks. “I buried Peter. Properly. With his family. With all the respect he was due. Like he was the man I remember growing up with instead of the monster that Kate Argent turned him into. All Kate left of us was two scared kids and a thing that looked like Peter but wasn’t. The real Peter died in the fire along with his wife and his son, his sister and his nieces and nephews.” Now he does look up. “So the fact that he’s finally been laid to rest isn’t that much of a tragedy, is it.”

Veronica stands with her mouth half-open for a minute before slumping into her seat and saying, “Aaaaand now I look like the biggest psycho bitch on the planet.”

“No,” Derek says. “I’ve met some psycho bitches. You are not them. Not by miles. You just have some issues and you don’t know when to quit. Those aren’t fundamental flaws of being,” he says, studying the origami wolf that he’s creating.

“I just . . . people are dying here. Will you . . . will you look me in the eye and tell me that you have _nothing_ to do with that?”

Derek looks her square in the eye, which really isn’t the most comfortable thing in the world. “We have nothing to do with it.”

Veronica lets out a breath. “Okay. And . . . asbestos? Fuck, I’m prying again, aren’t I.”

“Yep.” Derek’s almost amused at her complete inability to curb herself. Apparently, it’s like asking Stiles to sit still. “But you can have it as a freebie. From one screwed up person to another.”

“Okay. Thanks. I mean, sorry. I mean, shit. I don’t know what I mean.”

Derek rolls his eyes. “The job was a good opportunity for Papa Stilinski. But Stiles worries. We all do. We’ve gone through a lot of rough times together. People have been hurt, sometimes seriously, so we worry. Whoever went would worry about the people who stayed behind, and whoever stayed behind would worry about whoever went. So we stuck together. But that doesn’t go over well with large groups of high school students, so we fibbed.”

“Given the rumors about his scars, I guess I can totally see that,” Veronica says. She rubs both hands over her face. “Look, I’m sorry. I guess, after Peter Ferrer was murdered, and then I saw Stiles, the way he _fights_ , the way he _enjoyed_ that . . . maybe I had a bit of a freak-out.”

“He likes to cut loose every now and then.” Derek shrugs. “He never bullies or picks on people. What he did was fair. They all had a chance. He would have let them walk away.”

“It’s not that he _did_ it,” Veronica says. “It was the look on his face.”

“I bet your friend Weevil enjoys the occasional fight, too.” Derek can’t force himself be concerned about this one. It’s the wolf in them.

“Yeah, I guess so.” Veronica can’t quite bring herself to mention the crimson light in Stiles’ eyes, or the way he had moved so quickly that even the camera couldn’t keep up. She’s asked enough questions for the day. “So, shall we go find our boyfriends?”

Derek shrugs and gestures towards the door, sliding the origami wolf into his pocket. “Let’s go.”

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

Logan has to jog to catch up to Stiles, but at the last moment thinks better of the idea of grabbing him by the arm. “Hey. Hey!” he calls out.

Stiles turns into the alley next to the Mars Investigations office and stops. “What,” he says flatly.

“It’s not . . . it’s not you. You get that, right?” Logan rubs at the side of his nose and feels awkward, trying to explain and apologize for his girlfriend.

“What, that Veronica is so freaked out by me that she’s snooping around my private life because she’s convinced I murdered someone?”

“Uh, yeah, actually,” Logan says, with a shrug.

“Oh. Okay. Sure. That makes perfect sense.”

“Look, it’s just . . . just the way she is. I’m convinced she can’t even help it. Do you have any idea how many times she’s flipped her shit at me?” He leans back against the alley wall.

Stiles’ eyes narrow. “Is that supposed to make this okay?”

“No. I guess not. But she does like you. And I think that makes it even worse. She likes you, so now she has to make sure that there’s nothing hidden about you that’s going to come out of nowhere and hurt her.” Logan’s hands flex nervously. “How much do you know about what happened with Lilly?”

“Not much,” Stiles says, and adds somewhat pointedly, “It wasn’t my business.”

“Touché.” Logan gives him that half smile. “Well, the upshot is pretty much that everyone around Lilly kept secrets and told lies, and it almost ended in her murderer getting away with it. And most of those secrets managed to kick Veronica either in the teeth or in the ass. Her father lost his job, she was turned into a pariah at school, her mother left her family, and my father nearly managed to murder her.” He looks away and rubs his hand over the back of his head. “Girl is tough as nails and always comes back swinging, but she’s picked up some issues.”

For the first time since he showed up, Stiles looks like he might be willing to listen. “She’s just gotta know, huh?”

“She has to. Even when she wants to let it go.”

Stiles rubs both hands over his hair. “I don’t even know what she’s really freaking out about. Does she really think I had anything to do with those kids that were killed?”

Logan snorts. “No.” Then he pauses for a moment. “No, she doesn’t. But that won’t stop her from checking. Because no one had any reason to think my father killed Lilly, either. Hell, it was more likely that I had, or Duncan, and trust me, she suspected each of us in our turn. So no, she doesn’t think you had anything to do with it. But she still needs to see that, you know?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Stiles says, with a sigh. “We all have our own ways of coping with trauma. The problem is that her way of dealing with it steps on my way of dealing with it.”

“Well, maybe your boyfriend said something magical to her. He _does_ know how to talk, right? More than one or two words? I’m honestly not sure.”

“Ha very ha,” Stiles says, and then because he can, “I’ve found better uses for his mouth.”

Logan seems to consider this. “Yep, now I’m two hundred percent sure I’m straight. That did nothing for me.”

“All for the best,” Stiles says. He glances up because he can hear the jingle of the bell which means the door to the office is opening, and fuck it, it’s no use trying to keep secrets from these people anyway. They know he’s weird, he’s done a piss-poor job of hiding it, apparently. So he heads back out of the alley to find Veronica and Derek coming out and glancing around from them. He shuffles his feet for a minute and then walks over. He bumps shoulders with Derek but then looks at Veronica, and then away. “Hey.”

“Hey.” Veronica rocks nervously back and forth on her heels. “Sooo . . . I’m kind of a bitch. And I’m sorry about that. I’ll try to stop. I’m . . . probably gonna screw that up. The stopping part. But I’ll try. You can remind me.”

“Okay.” Stiles gives a little shrug. “Sometimes I forget that there are other people in the world as messed up as me.”

Veronica raises a hand. “Right there with you,” she says, and Derek and Logan are both relaxing a little.

“So,” Stiles says, drawing the word out, rubbing his hand over his hair. “Are we gonna figure out who killed Peter and Marcos, or what?”

Veronica smiles at him. “Yes,” she says. “Yes, we are.”

 

~ ~ ~ ~


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys know I had to work the pool scene in somehow, right? =D

 

Despite the fact that Veronica and Stiles have agreed to pool their information, it doesn’t get them much of anywhere. Sheriff Stilinski has looked up the three people who had been banned from the SHIP website. One of them was a senior who is now in college in Seattle, which makes him extremely unlikely although it doesn’t rule him out completely. The other two both have alibis for at least one of the murders.

“They could be working together,” Veronica points out.

“Yeah,” Stiles agrees, “but proving a conspiracy like that would be close to impossible. And that’s not even going into how they would have figured out who Peter and Marcos were from their usernames. The website is pretty freakin’ secure. Mac’s good at what she does. Peter, they could maybe guess, but Marcos? He set off nobody’s gaydar.”

Veronica sighs and agrees. “What about other people they talked to frequently?”

“My dad couldn’t exactly go around questioning everybody because then the parents would have a right to ask why their child was a suspect,” Stiles says, “and he couldn’t say ‘oh, because they were a member of this gay website’. He’s asked around as much as he can. But the fact remains that there are _no_ good suspects and pretty much no leads. No forensic evidence at either of the crime scenes, and they’ve been thoroughly checked.”

“That’s a little odd in and of itself, isn’t it?” Veronica muses. “From the . . . the method, these seems like crimes of passion. People don’t think to put on gloves first. You’d think they would have touched something, lost a hair, cut themselves on some broken glass, _something_.”

Stiles nods and rubs his hands over his face. “Dad has said that the crime scenes are unusually clean,” he says. That’s another reason they’re thinking something supernatural might be involved, but he can’t exactly say that to Veronica. “And they’ve yet to find or even really identify a murder weapon. Could be that there wasn’t one.”

“Jesus,” Veronica mutters. She pushes back from her desk. It’s about six PM on Sunday, and she barely did any of her homework because she had to drive to and from Beacon Hills. “I’m fried. I can’t make heads or tails of it.”

Stiles agrees. “You want to go get some dinner?” he asks. “For once I don’t really feel like cooking. I’m way too damned tired.”

“Sure,” she says, and they head downstairs. Logan has been hanging out at the pool while they play detective, admiring the scenery as Lydia and Erica sunbathe. Veronica shakes her head at him, but she’s smiling. Logan has a pulse and a dick; there’s no way she can ask him not to enjoy that view. “We’re gonna go grab a bite to eat.”

“Count me in,” he says, getting to his feet.

About half the pack decides to come. Derek, who spent most of the night talking Stiles down from the edge of his rage after the numerous phone calls from Beacon Hills, has fallen asleep curled up in a patch of fading sunlight. Scott and Isaac still have too much homework to do, and Erica and Allison are worn out from their sparring session that morning, another way of diffusing Stiles’ tension. He had given them both a good work-out.

So Danny, Boyd, and Lydia decide to join them for dinner. Veronica recommends a good Indian place, and they head over. When they arrive, they see Mac and Cassidy at a table in the corner. “Oh, hey!” Mac says, waving to them. “Want to join us?”

“Not if we’re interrupting a date,” Veronica says.

“Which I hope we are,” Logan says, wiggling his eyebrows at Cassidy, who gives him a faintly disconcerted look.

“You are, but it’s fine,” Mac says, laughing, then turns to Cassidy. “It . . . it is fine, right?”

“Sure,” he says. He waves to the waitress, who comes over and helps them move some tables over. There’s a few minutes of confusion while they order drinks and get menus. “We’ve already ordered,” Cassidy says.

“S’cool,” Stiles says. “I’m hungry enough to eat a horse.”

“Same here,” Veronica says.

“Long day?” Mac asks.

“Yeah,” Veronica says. “We were, uh, looking at some of that information you gave us. Not the real names,” she says hastily. “Just trying to, you know, narrow down the pool of suspects.”

“Get anywhere?” Mac asks.

“I swear to God, I think we wound up going backwards,” Stiles says, with a sigh.

“What are you guys working on?” Cassidy asks, picking nervously at his napkin.

“Just some leads into who might have killed Marcos and Peter,” Veronica says. “Not that we got anywhere. I guess we should leave the police work to the police.”

Danny lets out a snort of laughter. “If only either of you seemed capable.”

“Man’s got a point,” Logan agrees. “We’ll have to work on distracting them,” he adds, wrapping an arm around Veronica’s waist and putting his hands to suspect uses under the table.

“Cut that out or you’ll lose fingers,” Veronica says. He just laughs at her and leans in to nuzzle her neck. The waitress comes over to take their orders, and Cassidy excuses himself to use the restroom. “Were we making him uncomfortable?” Veronica asks, feeling a little uncertain. Logan is a big fan of PDA, but it’s never bothered her before.

“Probably,” Mac says brightly. “And that’s okay with me. The sooner he realizes that I’d really like to be on second base, the happier I’ll be.”

“Ugh, please no baseball talk,” Logan says with a groan. “After a day in Woody Goodman’s office, it’s all I can think about. Soon I’ll be able to talk about batting averages, and then I’ll just have to kill myself.”

“And we definitely don’t want that,” Veronica says, patting him on the hand. “So what should we talk about? If sex, murder, and sports are off the table, that doesn’t leave us a lot of options.”

“Hey, we’ve still got drugs and rock’n’roll,” Stiles says.

“I vote for rock’n’roll,” Logan says.

“Please don’t sing,” Veronica tells him.

“Did you guys know that the Java Hut has karaoke once a month?” Logan asks, grinning. “You should totally come down with us next time.”

“Bring your ear plugs,” Veronica advises them.

Stiles laughs. “Okay,” he says, “we’re in.”

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

The last thing Veronica wants that week is some new case to have to look into. But her reputation is well-known around Neptune High, so she can’t really blame anyone. When Gia Goodman comes to her about having a stalker, Veronica agrees to look into it. As it turns out, Gia doesn’t have a stalker at all. She has a protective detail, assigned by her father.

“Hey, Dad?” Veronica asks, poking her head into his office. “When Woody Goodman got that weird video, he said his gardener or somebody made it, right?”

“Yeah,” Keith says, glancing up. “He got pretty squirrely about it, though. Why?”

“Because for some reason he has private security following his daughter around. You still have a copy of that video?”

“Yes,” Keith says, and narrows his eyes at her. Then he sighs. “Promise me that you’ll be careful?”

“Cross my heart and hope to live a long, healthy life,” she says, making the gesture. He laughs and agrees to e-mail it to her. A quick view reveals nothing exciting, however. Just a guy walking down a hallway, holding a camera. She’s not sure what the point is.

She’s almost put it to the back of her mind when Gia gets a DVD in her locker. Like the first one, it has nothing written on it, and the only clip is a short one. It’s her younger brother at a soccer game, while she stands on the sidelines, cheering. Veronica watches it several times. There are other people filming. Parents who bring their cameras everywhere.

The video leads to a Tommy Dohanic, which is a name that sounds vaguely familiar. She goes online and finds out that he’s employed at Neptune High. She frowns at her computer screen. “Hey, Logan, do you know who Tommy Dohanic is?”

“Sure, that’s Lucky,” Logan says, looking over from where he’s playing World of Warcraft. “Y’know, the janitor. He used to help me and Dick get beer. Well, he still does, but I don’t talk to him so much anymore. He’s kinda weird since coming back from Iraq. Why?”

“Because he seems to be stalking Gia Goodman,” Veronica says.

“Yeah, that sounds like something Lucky would do,” Logan says.

“How would he even know Gia?”

“He was batboy for the Sharks for a while,” Logan says.

“Does a batboy just . . . carry bats around?” Veronica asks, frowning.

“I guess.” Logan gives a shrug. “Beats me. I quit long before I got to the part of baseball where the slaves come in.”

“So he worked with Woody and wound up with a crush on Gia, and now he’s stalking her and sending the family weird videos,” Veronica says. “Okay. Noted.”

Logan pauses his game and looks over. “That sounds different from ‘I think I’ll call that nice new sheriff and let him handle this’.”

“I told Gia I’d keep it quiet,” Veronica says. “She’s worried about embarrassing her father with the vote for incorporation being so close and all. He was obviously freaked out by that first video, because he assigned a protective detail to her. So maybe I can just send Lucky a note saying ‘hey, stop stalking Gia’. Or something like that.” She purses her lips and says, “If I can find some solid evidence linking him to the videos, I could probably blackmail him.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Logan says, and starts his game again.

Veronica considers for a long minute and then checks her watch. “I’m gonna head back to school for a bit,” she says. “It’ll be safer to check in his office than try to break into his house. It’s nearly seven. He should be gone by now.”

“Have fun,” Logan says, waving at her.

“You don’t want to come?” she asks, surprised.

“Pretty sure you can handle Lucky,” Logan says, “and if I back out of this raid, I’ll be in deep shit with very important people.”

Veronica laughs. “Okay.” She smacks a kiss onto his forehead. “Good luck . . . killing trolls or farming gold or whatever you’re doing.”

“Hey, you make it sound like I’m a nerd,” Logan complains as she heads out the door. “Don’t tell the guys!” he calls after her.

“I won’t!” she calls back, laughing. She gets in her car and heads towards the school. It’s quiet when she gets there, although not yet closed. It’s a Friday night in prime sports season, so there are still people there, some for practices and other for games. Football has an away game, and the basketball game has been over at least an hour. But the school is rarely completely empty. She heads straight for the janitor’s closet.

Two things become immediately evident.

The first is that going to school rather than Lucky’s home is going to get her absolutely nowhere, because he obviously lives in the janitor’s closet. She sees a computer and stacks of clothes and even some decorations. She’s fairly sure that this breaks school rules and at least one zoning ordinance.

The second is that she isn’t going to be able to talk to Lucky about anything, if the pool of blood slowly spreading from his body is any indication.

Crouched over Lucky’s body is . . .

Is a . . .

Veronica screams.

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

A little while previous, Stiles had started to fall asleep over his homework. Knowing how little he had been sleeping lately, Derek had approved of this. But the more he started to fall asleep, the more vigorously he jerked himself awake. He can’t help it. It’s something he does instinctively. Even after a year of therapy, the nightmares still give him a lot of trouble.

Since addressing the problem directly almost never helps with Stiles, Derek decides to try something more roundabout. “You want to go for a run?” he asks. “I need to stretch my legs.”

Stiles perks up. “Sure,” he says. A run will accomplish one of two things. Either he’ll come back so exhausted that he’ll collapse into a dead sleep regardless of what else he feels he should be doing, or it will invigorate him to the point that he’ll be able to get a couple more hours of work in and then it’ll be late enough for him to take one of his sleeping pills. The next day is Saturday; he doesn’t need to be in top form. He stands up and reaches for his sneakers.

Derek decides to go in his human form. He doesn’t mind either way, and that way he’ll be able to respond if Stiles wants to talk. Sometimes he does, sometimes he doesn’t. There’s never any sure way to tell. Even Stiles probably doesn’t know. Sometimes he just starts talking without even realizing it, once he’s mulled over the problem internally for a while.

They ask if anyone else wants to join them, but get a resounding no. It’s just after the dinner hour on a Friday night. Everyone else has settled down with the television or the pool or some other way to relax that doesn’t involve physical exertion. Stiles doesn’t mind. “Let’s drive down to the school first,” he says. “I hate running around the God damned 09er houses. Remember the time that rich asshole called the cops because I stopped to get some water and he thought I was going to steal his car?”

“Yeah,” Derek says, rolling his eyes. “Why the school?”

“I can run on the track. Count my distance. It . . . it’ll give me something to focus on.”

“Okay,” Derek says, with a nod, and the two of them get in the Jeep. They reach the school about ten minutes later, and Stiles parks at the back, near the athletic fields. They’ve just left the vehicle when Derek stiffens, tilting his head up and scenting the air.

“What?” Stiles asks, seeing the way his back goes straight.

“I smell something . . . wrong. It’s hard to describe.” He shakes his head a little. “I don’t know. Reptilian, maybe?”

“Weird.” Stiles frowns. “You want to check it out?”

“Sure,” Derek says, knowing that now that he’s scented it, Stiles won’t let it go. He tries the door to the gymnasium and finds it unlocked. Only the emergency lights are on, though the air is still thick with the scents of athletic teenagers from the basketball game earlier that night. But the reptilian scent underneath it is easy to trace, it stands out from its sheer strangeness. Stiles follows Derek through the gym and then through the pool area.

Once they reach the main hallway at school, Derek whips around and says, “Call the others. I smell blood.”

Stiles grabs his phone, nearly fumbles it, and dials Allison. She picks up a moment later. Stiles doesn’t waste his time on pleasantries. “Get down to the school,” he says. “There’s some kind of monster here. Bring everyone and come loaded for bear.”

“On it,” Allison says, and hangs up.

Derek has already started moving down the hallway, but he’s more cautious now. Then they hear the screaming.

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

The creature is vaguely human in shape, only a few inches taller than Veronica herself, but that’s where its resemblance to a human ends. It’s covered in thick, dark gray, reptilian scales. Its fingers are long and disjointed, with wicked looking claws coming out of the tips, and its body is balanced by a long, thick tail. When it turns to look at her, its eyes gleam gold. Then it begins to stalk forward, leaving the janitor’s closet and entering the hallway.

Veronica takes a step backwards. Then another. There’s blood on the creature’s hands. Lucky’s blood. This thing just killed Lucky and now it’s going to kill her. She can’t move, can’t breathe. The fear of Aaron Echolls in her back seat was absolutely nothing compared to this.

“Veronica!”

Someone shouting her name brings her back to herself. She turns to see Stiles bolting down the hallway. Just as she looks away from the creature, it moves, lunging forward. She screams again and then Stiles takes her in a full tackle, knocking her to the ground. They land hard and roll several times. Then she hears a snarl. When she sits up and looks around wildly, someone Derek’s height with Derek’s clothes but with the face of a monster is standing between them and the reptilian creature.

“What the fuck is that thing?” Veronica screams, unable to help herself.

From the stunned look on Stiles’ face, she’s fairly sure that he has absolutely no idea. But he recovers a hell of a lot faster than she does. He’s on his feet mere moments later and shouts, “Derek, down!” Derek hits the floor instantly and Stiles pulls out –

“Is that a fucking water gun?” Veronica chokes out.

Stiles pays her no mind, concentrating his aim on the lizard. He hits it squarely in the face. It hisses and then jumps at him.

“No good!” Stiles shouts, and grabs Veronica under the arms, hauling her to her feet as Derek tackles the creature mid-lunge and they go skittering to the ground. Then he looks into Lucky’s closet and nearly drops her. “Jesus Christ!”

Derek gets to his feet and sends the lizard flying down the hallway with one heave. It bounces off the wall and comes back twice as fast. Stiles grabs Veronica by the wrist and runs back the way they had come. Derek is hot on their heels, but has to stop to defend their retreat as the monster catches up with them. He grabs a cart of cleaning supplies that someone – probably Lucky – had left in the hallway. Not something off the cart, Veronica detachedly notes, but the entire cart. Then he slams it into the creature’s midsection. It goes down, but then keeps coming after them.

“Motherfucker just won’t stay down,” Derek gasps out. His face is normal now. He’s shifted back, like he has some strange idea about how Veronica shouldn’t see him like that, like somehow she might have missed the evidence of the supernatural right in front of her. They slam through the door into the pool area. “How long – ” he says, and then that tail slams into him, sending him stumbling.

“Derek, your neck – ” Stiles says, letting go of Veronica as Derek nearly falls. “You – ”

“I’m okay,” Derek says, but he obviously isn’t. Stiles grabs him as he pitches forward, and their momentum carries them forward several steps away from Veronica. She grabs her taser as the creature charges forward again. She’s had enough of being rescued. As it reaches for her, she slams the device into its midsection and pulls the trigger. There’s the familiar buzz of electricity, but it has no effect on the creature beyond seeming to annoy it. It throws her into a stack of chairs and she knocks them over with a clatter.

“Jesus, V – ” Stiles says, and he starts to go towards her. As he lets go of Derek, he overbalances and tumbles into the pool. “Fuck!” Stiles says, and dives in after him. He grabs Derek as he starts to sink and pulls him back up to the surface, towing him over to the edge. “Hold on,” he says.

“Can’t,” Derek pants, his voice choppy with panic. “Can’t move. Can’t move anything.”

“Fuuuuuck,” Stiles snarls. He starts to pull Derek out, then sees the monster advancing on Veronica again. She’s trying to get out of the piles of chairs, but she’s obviously hurt. There just isn’t time to drag Derek all the way out of the pool. “How long can you hold your breath?”

“Four and a half minutes,” Derek gasps out.

“I’ll be back in three,” Stiles says, and lets him go. He hauls himself out of the pool and pulls out his gun. He takes the briefest moment to aim, thanking God for the paranoia that makes him go armed everywhere he can get away with it, thanking God that he has the sort of gun that will still fire after a quick trip in the pool. Then he sights on the monster and just starts pulling the trigger. He uses three shots, wanting to spare his ammunition. The creature squeals and momentarily retreats, ducking back into the hallway.

Stiles lunges forward and shuts the doors, then drags over a stack of chairs and topples it in front of the entrance. “Veronica,” he says, rushing over to her just as she struggles out of the mess she’s in. “You okay?”

Veronica’s shaking too hard to answer, although she tries. Stiles grabs her by the shoulders and shakes her. “Veronica! I know this is scary. But I need you to focus right now.” If he tells her to run, the monster might circle around and go after her. She’s safest with them. And he’s keenly aware of the seconds passing. He takes his gun and presses it into her hand. “I need you to stay here.” He points to the area behind the barricade of chairs that the monster has thoughtfully created for them. “And if that thing comes through the door, I need you to pull the trigger. Can you do that?”

“I – I’ve never fired a gun before – ”

“I don’t need you to hit it, I just need you to fire and scare it off,” Stiles says. “Can you do that?”

“I – I think so – ”

“I think so isn’t good enough!” Stiles shouts. “Can you do that or not?”

“Yes!” she shouts back. “Yes, I can do that!”

“Good girl. Wait here.” Stiles shoves her down behind the chairs and then dives into the pool. Derek has sunk all the way to the bottom. He almost doesn’t have enough air himself to get all the way down and then back up. Swimming has never been his forte. When your childhood best friend has asthma, you don’t make a lot of trips to the YMCA.

When he breaks the surface, Derek gives a heaving gasp for air, pulling it in and then coughing. But he’s breathing. He’s alive, still conscious. Stiles tows him over to the side of the pool and shoves at him, trying to get him out. It’s harder than it sounds. Derek’s inert body is almost entirely made of muscle and weighs about two hundred pounds. Stiles gets a little increased strength from being the alpha, but not very much, and the water resistance doesn’t help. But he gets him there an inch at a time.

He’s just pulled himself back up onto the cold cement and spared a thought for how very, very tired he is, how he could seriously just roll over and fall right to sleep where he is, when he hears the gun go off. He scrambles back to his feet just as the monster comes through the doors and over the chairs. He just stares at it as it reaches for Veronica. She pulls the trigger again, and he thinks she even hits it, but it doesn’t slow down as much as an instant. If there’s anything he can do, he can’t think of what it is. She’s a good twenty feet away and he has no distance weapons left. There just isn’t time for him to get to her.

Then there’s a sharp _twang_ and an arrow buries itself in the monster’s thigh. It lets out a shrill scream and staggers backwards. He hears a snarl and several half-shifted werewolves come charging across the pool and head right for it. The monster rips the arrow out of its leg, turns, and bolts back into the school. Moments later, it’s turned a corner and is gone.

“Should we go after it?” Boyd asks.

Stiles shakes his head, panting with exhaustion. He’s not risking any of his wolves on that damned thing. It’s too strong and too fast. Faster than any of them.

“Okay, what the _actual fuck_ was that thing,” Veronica blurts out, too stunned to think of anything else useful to say.

“Scott,” Stiles says, waving at him urgently but completely unable to articulate through the heart-pounding fear as he crouches over Derek’s still form. He can’t even manage to explain what’s wrong. “Scott. C’mere.”

Scott moves over to the two of them without even thinking and starts running careful but quick hands over Derek, trying to figure out what’s wrong. “Jesus,” he says. He can tell that Derek is awake and aware, but the fact that he’s not trying to bat Scott’s hands away is worrisome. “What happened?”

“That thing – ” Stiles still isn’t finding words. He rolls Derek slightly so Scott can see the cut on the back of his neck. “He can’t move.”

“Stop.” Scott’s tone is quick and firm, and he carefully moves Derek so he’s lying down flat again. “Derek, can we usually heal injuries to the spine?” he asks, now lying flat on the wet cement on his stomach to get a better look at the cut without moving Derek.

“Sometimes. Fifty-fifty.” Derek’s gaze shifts over to Stiles, trying not to give in to the fear of being paralyzed. “Maybe better odds over time. Like Peter had.”

“Well, the cut itself is healing, although slower than normal.” Scott sniffs. “Smells weird. Reptilian, but . . . weird.” He lifts himself up and brushes his fingers carefully against Derek’s cheek, where he knows Derek can feel it, because the normal comforting cheek rub is out. “I’m calling Dr. Deaton.”

Stiles gives a nod. “We can’t . . .” He tries to gather himself, which is difficult. Derek will be okay, he tells himself firmly, because even if he _is_ paralyzed, they’ll just find a way to fix it. “We can’t stay long. Lucky. The janitor. He’s dead. I need to call my dad. We need to clean up and get out of here, and we . . .” His gaze darts over to Veronica. “I know you must be all sorts of freaking out, but . . . but _Derek_ . . .” He trails off, not knowing how to explain that he won’t be able to focus on anything until he knows whether or not Derek is going to be okay.

Veronica stares at him helplessly for a few moments because she just doesn’t know what to say. But then she sees the real terror in his eyes, the way his knuckles are white as he clutches at the sleeve of Derek’s shirt. She tries to imagine Logan lying there on the cold tile, unable to move, and she manages a nod. “Okay.”

  
~ ~ ~ ~


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) At least two thirds of this chapter is Stiles telling Veronica a bunch of stuff that you guys already know, so here's me hoping that it isn't totally boring, LOL
> 
> 2) A note on werewolf eye color:
> 
> There is simply no way I can envision myself *ever* meshing the events of Visionary (3.08) into this 'verse. Just, no. Didn't happen. No Paige. No Ennis. No way. To be honest I can't imaging meshing the events of Visionary into *any* TW fic I ever write, and prefer to pretend that it just didn't happen at all and that entire episode was an extremely vivid hallucination I had while on 'shrooms.
> 
> Given this, after lengthy thought, I've decided to stay with my original headcanon that born wolves have blue eyes, turned wolves have gold eyes, and alphas have red eyes regardless. Just roll with it. =D

Scott’s already got his phone out while Stiles is talking to Veronica. He’s unbearably grateful when Dr. Deaton skips the pleasantries and just asks what’s wrong. Scott swallows and starts to lay out what little information he knows, as clinically as possible. His voice only hitches once. The one time he looks away from Derek, it’s to watch Allison pull her sleeves over her hands and starts going through her bag to find what she’ll need to clean up the scene. He listens as Deaton asks a few questions, then says, “I’ll find out.” He crouches at Derek’s side. “Can you feel your fingertips at all? I don’t care if you can move them, but can you feel them?” He reaches out and squeezes the tips of Derek’s fingers.

“Yes,” Derek says, his voice remarkably even.

“Okay.” He moves to Derek’s feet and tucks the cell phone between his ear and his shoulder before carefully easing one of the sneakers off and doing the same to Derek’s toes. “What about that, can you feel that?”

“I think so. I’m cold, so it’s hard to tell.”

“Yes to both,” Scott says into the phone, “and he can tell that he’s cold.” There’s a brief silence. “A what? No, I don’t . . . okay.” A bright smile spreads over his face, and he holds a hand out with his thumb up so Derek and more importantly Stiles can see it. “Is he safe to move? Because we have to . . . yeah, I’ll call you back. Okay. Thank you _so_ much.” Scott hangs up and shoves his phone back into his pocket. “Neurotoxin,” he says. “It’ll wear off.”

Stiles huffs out a sigh of relief that shakes his entire body. “Okay.” He looks around quickly, checks on his resources. “Did you guys drive here?”

“Yeah, we have my car and Lydia’s,” Danny says.

“Okay.” Stiles gives a nod and thinks about who the least scary is. “Isaac, Lydia. You’re in charge of Veronica. Take her in Lydia’s car. Boyd, Danny, you’ve got Derek. Lay him out in your backseat. Erica, Allison, stay here for clean-up. You’ve probably got about ten minutes before my dad will get here. Do not go anywhere near the janitor’s closet. You’ll have to make do. Scott . . . help me up.” His knees are trembling and he’s pretty sure that any effort to walk on his own will fall in an embarrassing fashion.

“Already on it,” Allison calls over. She has her bow slung across her back and had managed to find a few bottles of chemicals she thought would do the trick. Fortunately, there isn’t much blood. Erica moves over to help her, sleeves also pulled over her hands, and the two start to confer.

Boyd and Danny start to scoop Derek up in a chair carry, getting his arms around their shoulders. Erica looks over and shouts, “He likes to watch My Little Ponies while he’s recovering!”

“I hate you!” Derek shouts back.

“You know what I hate?” Danny asks rhetorically. “Lizards.”

Scott pulls Stiles to his feet, looping Stiles’ arm over his shoulders. Veronica watches all of them, moving easily now that the fear of Derek being permanently injured is falling away. She’s wondering if she’s ready for the loony bin and the fact that Derek and Erica are teasing each other isn’t helping. Stiles is saying something back to Danny about how at least this lizard isn’t the size of a Buick, and then Lydia is bending over her and offering her a hand. “You okay?” the redhead asks, smiling. “I mean, as okay as one can possibly be, given what just happened?”

Veronica hesitates for a moment before taking Lydia’s hand, but she does take it. “Are giant lizards normal for you guys?”

“More than we’d like,” Lydia says, helping her up. Isaac hovers a little, not saying anything, but clearly ready to help Veronica if she needs it.

The others are heading for the back door which leads to the parking lot. Veronica follows, shaky but holding her own, at least for the moment. Veronica hesitates and presses a hand against her forehead. “My car,” she says. “If I leave it here, the sheriff will see it.”

Stiles takes a quick glance around and again takes stock of his resources. He’s got no reason to think this creature, whatever it is, is targeting them, but still, he doesn’t want anyone on their own. “Isaac, ride with Veronica. Boyd, ride with Lydia. Danny, you can handle Derek as long as Boyd helps you get him in the car?” he asks, and Danny nods. Stiles manages a wan smile and says, “Try not to take advantage of his helplessness.”

“It’s no fun if he just lays there,” Danny says.

“You are the _worst_ ,” Derek states. “Both of you.”

“If you think that’s the worst, just be glad Erica’s not here to offer _her_ opinion on the fun of someone who just lays there,” Stiles replies, with a smirk. Derek just glowers.

“You think her mouth is hilarious,” Isaac says.

“Oh, yeah,” Stiles says. “Absolutely.” He turns to Veronica and says, “Seriously, I . . . I don’t mean to ditch you when I know you have a lot to process right now, but . . . I’ll explain everything once we get back to the house. Okay?”

Veronica nods in blind agreement and then comes back to herself and shakes her head. “Wait! No. Shouldn’t we take Derek to the hospital or something?”

“Hospitals don’t like to hear things like ‘our friend has been paralyzed from the neck down by the neurotoxin venom of a lizard monster’,” Stiles says, “and if Deaton says it’ll wear off, it’ll wear off.” He lets out a breath. “Trust me, Veronica. I am the _last_ person in the world who would put Derek in any sort of danger. He’ll be okay.”

“Who the _fuck_ is Deaton?” Veronica forces herself to take a deep breath. “Okay. Wait. I met Deaton. He was . . . I can totally picture him knowing all about venomous lizard monsters. But still. Back at the house. I want _all_ the answers.” And if anyone tries anything, she tells herself, she’ll tase the crap out of them.

“As long as you don’t expect me to know what the fuck that thing was,” Stiles says, gesturing back at the pool area, “because I really don’t have a God damned clue.”

“Great. Just great.” She turns and heads for her car almost robotically. She knows that she just has to give herself a few minutes to think and let it sink in. Once she has all the pieces, things will fall into place and she’ll feel better. She’ll understand.

Isaac paces after her silently. He doesn’t say anything as they walk around the school, doesn’t say anything until they reach the car and he sees the way Veronica’s hands are shaking as she fumbles for her keys. “Do you want me to drive?”

“Yeah. I think you had better.” It kills her to say that. She doesn’t like having people she doesn’t know very well in her car, after Aaron Echolls had popped up out of her back seat like some sort of demented jack-in-the-box. But at the same time, she can’t drive safely right now. So she hands him the keys, slides into the front passenger seat, and belts herself in. She makes sure the belt is tight in case there’s a crash for any reason, and clenches her fingers tightly around her bag in her lap, where she keeps her taser.

Isaac folds himself into the front seat and starts the car. They’ve driven several minutes in silence before he says, “I, uh, I’m not gonna hurt you. I mean, I know you’re probably freaked out, but we’re still the same people we were yesterday.”

“No offense, because I’m sure you’re a perfectly nice guy, at least you seem to be, but there are only a few people I let be in a car with me and you aren’t one of them, okay?” She just wants to have a quiet freak-out right now. There’s a panicky feeling crawling up from her belly because how well does she really know Isaac? Sure he seems nice, but for a long time, so had Mr. Echolls, and look how that turned out. And most of the time she’s okay. She could get to know people, but they weren’t in her car, where they could grab her or force her to drive to the middle of nowhere or . . . she takes a deep breath and squeezes her eyes shut.

After a long moment, Isaac looks over at her, smelling her fear and hearing the rapid spike of her heart, and he murmurs something that he hopes is reassuring but knows probably isn’t. Then he devotes his attention to the road, because Veronica clearly doesn’t want to talk about it, and he wouldn’t either, if he were her. So he just drives, and they get to the house that Derek rented about ten minutes later. The others are already there, because they didn’t have to walk around the school to get to their car, and Stiles is hovering over Derek as Danny and Boyd get him out of Danny’s car.

The second Isaac pulls the car to a stop, Veronica is out of it, stumbling a few steps away from all of them. Once she’s put a few yards between herself and everyone else, she leans forward, bracing her hands on her knees and working on pulling herself together. Up until now, she had simply avoided allowing anyone in the car aside from a short list of trusted people. Now she knows what will happen if someone else takes the wheel, and she hates it.

When she’s pulled herself together, she looks around and realizes that only Stiles is still outside. The others have all gone in, to give her some privacy. Stiles isn’t watching her, either; he’s staring out into the distance, fingers lacing and unlacing as he fidgets. When he sees her move, he glances over at her and says, “How are you doing?”

“I’m not normally a ‘freak out’ sort of girl,” Veronica says, wanting to make that clear.

“You’re probably not normally attacked by poisonous lizard monsters, either,” Stiles points out.

“That’s not . . . I don’t like people being in my car.” She blurts the words out suddenly. She doesn’t want him thinking that he’s having some sort of complete meltdown over the lizard, and deciding that she can’t handle being told what’s really going on.

Stiles looks at her blankly for a few moments before he recalls the details of her confrontation with Aaron Echolls and guilt floods into his eyes. “Aw, _shit_ , Veronica, I’m sorry. I didn’t think about that. I thought having someone else along would make you feel better, safer, you know.”

The look of guilt almost makes Veronica happy. Not because she wants him to feel bad, but because someone who feels bad for accidentally frightening her just isn’t a bad person. It’s the Stiles that she’s friends with. “I won’t hold it against you. It’s the first time it’s come up.”

Stiles nods at her. He looks at her thoughtfully for a few moments and then says, “Back when Peter Hale was alive, he put me in the trunk of his car. I spent two days there while my dad looked for me. For over a year afterwards, I couldn’t spend more than five minutes in any space smaller than a bathroom without dissolving into complete hysterics.”

“Yeah, I absolutely sympathize,” Veronica says. “I’m surprised I’m not claustrophobic. Mr. Echolls shoved me in a fridge and then set it on fire.” She smirks a little. “It’s a good thing that refrigerators don’t burn that well. I don’t think he was thinking things through.”

“You would’ve died from smoke inhalation,” Stiles says, and then says, “Fuck, that was pretty insensitive, I’m really on a roll today, aren’t I.”

“No, I think I actually prefer insensitive to hand-holding,” Veronica says, and gives a philosophical shrug. “I’m not the hand-holding sort. I’m the taser and attack dog sort.”

“Yet another way in which you and I are alike,” Stiles says, somewhat solemnly. He lets out a breath. “Do you want to come in? Or would you rather talk out here?” ‘Where you can get away’ are the underlying words, but he doesn’t say them out loud.

Veronica takes a minute to think about that. She sees that Isaac left her keys on the roof of her car rather than keeping them to hand to her. Somehow, that makes her feel better. “I think I’m okay to go inside,” she says, as she reaches up to collect them. She can’t quite stop herself from checking to make sure the car is empty, and then locking it.

Stiles waits patiently while she does that, then turns and heads inside. He goes first so she won’t have him at her back, but holds the door open for her. Inside, Derek has been arranged on the sofa, and Danny has, as directed, put on the My Little Ponies show. He’s scowling at them but still correcting Lydia as she gets one of their names wrong. Someone has stripped him and re-dressed him in dry clothes. Stiles walks over and rubs a hand over Derek’s hair absently, a comforting gesture, before saying, “We’ll be in the kitchen if you need us.”

“Okay,” Derek says, leaning into Stiles’ hand as best he can.

Scott looks over at them. “Did either of you get hurt?”

“I’m okay,” Stiles says, and looks at Veronica. “That thing tossed you into that pile of chairs. You okay?”

“Just some bruises,” she says. “I think I’m fine.”

“Okay, good,” he says, and then to Scott, “We’re okay. I just . . . need to settle. Okay?”

Scott nods. “No problem.”

Stiles heads into the kitchen and gestures for Veronica to follow. “When I get anxious or bad things happen, I bake,” he says. “It’s my coping mechanism, so, you’re going to have to put up with it. On the upside, at the end, there will be delicious cookies. If you have a delicious cookie preference, speak now or forever hold your peace.”

“I only know how to make sugar cookies and snickerdoodles, but . . . peanut butter? Do you know how to make those?” She remembers her mother making them because they’re her and her father’s favorite. She’s never really managed it, though.

“Oh, sure,” Stiles says, his front half disappearing into the cabinet. “If I manage to bake any before the pack eats all the dough, it’ll be a miracle, though.”

Veronica snorts at his choice of words. “Pack? They’re really that bad? They act like wolves?”

“They are,” Stiles says, setting down a jar of peanut butter on the counter. “I mean, they are wolves. They’re werewolves. Remember, the werewolves? Yeah. All of them. Except me and Allison. And my dad. Everyone else: totally a werewolf. Just like it said on the internet.”

Veronica is all set to laugh at the joke, but then she sees that Stiles is serious. “What.”

“Werewolves are real. So is magic, so are sorcerers. So are faeries and trolls. And apparently, so are lizard monsters.” Stiles sets down a glass next to her and pours some whiskey into it. “Drink.”

She picks it up and gets it near her mouth and then gets it a whiff of it and puts it down hard. “No.” She takes a breath. “I don’t drink. Mom’s got a problem, and there was this party after Lilly died and I don’t remember part of it. I just . . . don’t drink.”

“Suit yourself.” Stiles picks the glass up and downs it himself. “Do you want anything else? Tea, water, to slap me across the face?”

“Tea. Tea would be great. And, uh, evidence. I’m a big fan of proof.”

“Okay. Promise not to freak out?”

“Can we settle for me promising to not start screaming, running, or using the taser?” Veronica asks. “I think I should be allowed to have a freak-out if the object of a third of pre-teen fantasy romance novels suddenly has a basis in reality.”

“Fair,” Stiles says. He pulls out a canister of flour and then a box full of measuring implements. “Hey, will someone come show Veronica a werewolf?” he calls into the other room.

“Sure,” Scott calls, trotting into the room. “Eighties B movie version or fur?”

“Do both,” Stiles says. “It’s been a long day. Maybe seeing your funky sideburns will cheer Veronica up.”

Scott laughs. “No problem,” he says, and looks at Veronica. “Seriously. It’s like Elvis,” he says, and with that, he lets his body start to shift from one form to the other. A moment later, he looks up, with wolf gold eyes. He has a longer jaw full of sharp canine teeth, and fingers tipped in nasty-looking claws. He knows the picture is relatively unattractive, but it’s very effective in a fight.

“Okay,” Veronica says, trying not to stare. “Okay, that . . . there’s a werewolf in the kitchen, I . . . I need to sit down.”

“You are sitting down,” Stiles points out with a wince.

“Of course I am,” Veronica says, bracing her elbows on the table and her head in her hands. “Werewolves. Okay. Sure.”

Scott shifts back so he’s fully human. “I know, right? Stiles actually figured it out before I did, when I was bitten.” He gives her a warm smile. “You want to see the less scary version?”

“Uh . . . sure. Why not.” Veronica surreptitiously pinches herself underneath the table. It hurts. Just like getting batted around by a lizard monster had hurt. She’s not dreaming, and might be going crazy, but then again this _would_ explain a lot. She tries to keep it together as Scott pulls off his shirt. “Okay, wow, uh, that is definitely less scary, but . . . why are you stripping?”

“Tail,” Scott replies, the smile turning a little mischievous as he toes off his shoes. He’s kind enough to turn his back to her before shucking off his jeans and boxers.

“Oh my God,” Veronica mumbles under her breath, trying very, very hard not to look at Scott’s ass.

Scott laughs, but the sound changes into sort of a chuffing noise as his body bends and shifts down into the full wolf form. Once he’s shifted, he turns to face her and Stiles, still laughing, his tongue lolling and his tail moving in that low wag that wolves do. He’s almost as large as ‘Jack’, but his fur is dark brown and has sort of a wave to it, unlike Derek’s straight black. He’s thinner, more lean than Derek, who has a more solid frame.

Veronica is so stunned that she almost changes her mind about the whiskey. She just stares for a moment, because that is a _wolf_ , a real, live, one hundred percent wolf standing in the kitchen of an 09er house, and there’s just nothing in her that can process that. Especially when Stiles unscrews the lid of the peanut butter jar and Scott’s head whips around. He pads over and starts pawing at Stiles’ shirt. Stiles laughs and says, “There will be peanut butter cookies for everyone, you beggar. Get off.”

Scott chuffs again, picks his clothes up in his mouth, and pads out of the room. Stiles turns slightly and puts a mug of tea down in front of Veronica. “So. Werewolves are real. My friends are werewolves. Evidence enough?”

“Yeah, I . . . I don’t think my heart could take much more evidence than that.”

“I am not a werewolf,” Stiles says, “but I am the alpha of this pack, which is why . . .” He looks up at her, his eyes shining red, “you saw that.”

Veronica nearly drops the mug of tea she’s lifting to her lips. “I _knew_ that wasn’t a trick of the firelight!”

“Yeah, no,” Stiles says. “Born wolves have blue eyes, turned wolves have gold, and alphas have red. But that’s detail you probably don’t care about. You probably have a million questions.” He rubs a hand over his head. “Honestly, I’m not sure where to start.”

“Well, wait, back up and start there. Born wolves and turned wolves? And you said alpha wolves have red eyes and then you said you’re an alpha but not a wolf, so explain all of that,” Veronica says. Her coping strategy is going to be being herself, with a vengeance. “And once I have some basics, we’re getting back to the lizard monster.”

“Okay.” Stiles lets out a breath. “There are two types of werewolves. Some people are born that way. There are families full of them. Other people are turned into werewolves by being bitten, like you see on the movies. Derek is a born wolf. Everyone else in the pack is a turned wolf. On occasion, a human can join a wolf pack. It happens most commonly when they become the mate of a wolf, but there are other ways it can happen, too. Whether you’re born or turned, you can be alpha, beta, or omega. The alpha is in charge of the pack. Betas are subordinates to the alpha. And an omega wolf is one who doesn’t have a pack. Follow me so far?”

Veronica nods, wrapping her hands around the tea mug. She’s trying to apply this information to how she’s seen Stiles act with his friends. It wasn’t really jiving until the last hour or so – except for his fight with Travis.

“On the very, very rare occasion, a human can become the alpha of a pack. And when I say ‘very rare’, what I actually mean is that I am the only one in documented existence.” He meets Veronica’s gaze and says, “You become the alpha of a pack by killing the previous alpha. In my case, that was Peter Hale. I killed him and became the alpha of this pack.”

“Why,” Veronica says, but it’s not really a question. “Why would you do that?” She’d had her suspicions about him. The Stiles that she had seen fighting Travis on the beach seemed like he might be the sort of person who could do that. But the Stiles that had saved her at school, the Stiles that had sat there on the wet cement clutching Derek’s shirt didn’t seem like a murderer at all.

Stiles lets out another slow breath. “Because he was a killer and he needed to be stopped. Because he was an alpha wolf and a prison cell never could have held him. Because he was _Peter_ , Derek’s uncle that he had loved, but losing his family made him go crazy and turned him into a monster. Because the pack gains strength from being united and none of us would accept Peter, so it left us weak, crippled, easy prey. There were so, _so_ many reasons that I did it, and a lot of them you won’t understand. So let me put it this way.

“Aaron Echolls killed your best friend. He was horrible to Logan his entire life – no, he didn’t say anything to me, but I can read the signs. So let’s say that Aaron Echolls gets acquitted. He could, you know. He has good lawyers and a lot of money. And not only does he get away with murder, but he’s still in town. He’s taunting you, following you around, intimidating you and your friends. He’s in control of Logan’s life again, holding the purse strings. And you know that because he was acquitted, there’s nothing you can do to stop him. Legally, your hands are tied.

“I want you to just think about that for a minute. Now imagine a scenario where you’ve got a gun to Aaron Echolls’ head and you know you can stop him. That you can do it without getting caught, protect your boyfriend, get justice for Lilly, all by just pulling that trigger, and no one will ever know. Would you do it?”

The scenario he’s describing is almost too horrible to contemplate, but it’s one she can contemplate all too easily because it’s haunted her nightmares. Every time the defense attorneys call with questions for her, she thinks about it. She knows that Aaron would never just leave town if he got free. He would do exactly what Stiles is describing. She’s held a gun now, knows how it feels. She closes her eyes and pictures it in her mind, pictures Lilly’s body and the way Logan broke down crying in her arms when he realized his mother was really gone. Then she opens her eyes and says, “Yes.”

“Then you can understand why I killed Peter.” Stiles lets out a breath. “He had murdered six people – and no, they weren’t all involved in the death of his family. He killed his nurse, who had helped him, and I never figured out why. Except that maybe by that point he just couldn’t stop. He tried to kill Allison just because she was _related_ to the person who had murdered his family. He turned Scott and Lydia against their will, tried to force Scott to kill us. He threatened to kill Lydia if I didn’t help him find Scott so he could keep using him. And I did help him.” Stiles’ hands shake a little as he cracks eggs into a bowl. “God forgive me, I did. And then he put me in the trunk of his car and left me for dead. Peter was _bad_ , Veronica, bad all the way through, and he wasn’t going to stop until someone put him down. So I did.”

Veronica nods a little. It doesn’t seem like there’s anything she can say in response to that, especially given what Derek had told her about Peter just days previous. She needs a subject change, to give herself some time to roll all of this over in her head. “So now . . . you’re in charge of everyone?” she asks, frowning a little, because nobody really seemed that subordinate.

“An alpha is a lot of things,” Stiles says, relaxing a little when she doesn’t push the subject. “Yeah, sometimes I give orders, like you saw earlier, but that’s usually only in dire situations. The alpha is like the head of the family. A caretaker and a protector. I cook the food, I remind Erica to do her homework, I take Lydia shoe shopping because nobody else can stand watching her try on fifty pairs of identical heels. When it’s necessary, I step up and make sure nobody messes with us. My job is to keep the pack safe, and to keep the pack together.”

“Okay.” Veronica files all of this away for future reference. “What about the full moon thing? And you said Peter turned Scott and Lydia against their will. Does that mean everybody else signed up?” She shoves the edge of her tea mug against her mouth to stop the questions spilling out.

“We’re strongest at the full moon, but can shift any time,” Stiles says. “I took control of the pack when it was just Derek, Scott, and Lydia. Well, and Allison, by dint of the fact that she’s Scott’s girlfriend. And Derek was really only in the pack because he was related to Peter, but, never mind. I didn’t even know I’d become alpha – I thought Derek would inherit it as Peter’s nephew. I mean, shit, I’m not even a fucking werewolf. Nobody saw that one coming, trust me. After that, we invited Isaac, Erica, and Boyd, and they were all turned with consent. Danny’s kind of a special case because he had been seriously injured. Werewolves have accelerated healing, so we turned him to save his life.”

“Why aren’t you and Allison werewolves?” Veronica asks. “I mean, it seems like something that most people want to be.”

“Peter offered me the bite as a gift.” Stiles’ mouth twists into a grimace as he says the word. “A reward for ‘helping’ him, as if he hadn’t forced me to. After that I developed a strong aversion to the entire concept. Once I became the alpha, honestly, we’re not even sure I _could_ be turned, or what would happen to my status if I was, and we’re not eager to find out. As for Allison, she comes from a family of werewolf hunters, and her dad would kill me in my sleep if we ever turned her. You met her dad, so you should understand that.”

“He carried a rifle like it was his best friend.” Veronica pauses, thinking back over that encounter, and really perks up for the first time. “He asked if I was a hunter. And what family I was from. He meant werewolf hunter, didn’t he. Do they always come in weirdly large families? Do Allison and Scott have a mercifully-non-tragic Romeo and Juliet thing going on?”

Stiles stifles a laugh. “He asked if you were a hunter? Wow, way to be subtle, Chris. I’m going to have to send him a text mocking him at the nearest opportunity. Yes to the first question, yes to the second. It’s basically only non-tragic because I intervened and smacked Chris in the face with some blackmail material and told him if he didn’t let them date, I’d ruin him. That was a couple years ago now. He got over it.”

“Okay.” Veronica takes a moment. “So. How does all of this relate back to the super scary lizard thing?”

“I really am not sure.” Stiles rubs a hand over his face, leaving a smear of flour on his cheek. “My dad – who knows about all this supernatural stuff, by the way – asked me if I knew anything about a monster that might make that sort of surgical cut across the back of the neck. He noticed it on both Peter and Marcos. I didn’t, and told him I would look into it. That was the only evidence we had, up until tonight, that this was anything other than a garden-variety human killer.”

“So does it kill at random? Marcos and Peter had something in common but not Lucky?” Veronica shakes her head. “That guy that Scott called. If he knew about the neurotoxin, shouldn’t he know more?”

“He should and does,” Stiles says, “because I called him back while we were on our way back to the house. Apparently, this type of lizard is called a ‘kanima’. It’s a shapeshifter, so it’s human underneath. But unlike a werewolf, it possesses no consciousness of its separate form. The human is unaware of the kanima and vice versa. As to why it might be killing these people, on that score I’m clueless. Lydia’s looking it up in the bestiary.”

“The . . . wait . . .”

“Get your mind out of the gutter,” Stiles says firmly. “A bestiary is a dictionary full of beasts. See how the word works?”

“I know the difference between a bestiary and bestiality, you ass,” Veronica says. “One is a book and the other is disgusting.” She wrinkles her nose. “I was going to say: wait, bestiaries are _real_ , as in ‘all those things are actually out there’? Oh God, freak-out time.”

“Deep breaths, drink your tea, the bestiality thing is not my fault, Scott started it,” Stiles says. “Yes, those things are out there, and the reason you’ve never known that before is that people like Chris work really, _really_ hard to keep it that way.”

“Right. Tea. Right.” She takes a couple of swallows. “So . . . what do we do now? And . . . I can’t . . . I mean, I know it’s a secret, but . . .” She doesn’t want to start lying or keeping huge secrets from Logan. Everyone else, she thinks she can manage. They don’t get defensive about it the same way; they know that she has her secrets. Her life is such a disaster, she needs to be able to be completely honest with at least one person. She looks down at her tea.

Stiles says, “Lemme think about it,” and turns on the mixer. He’s quiet for several long minutes, letting Veronica sip the tea as he mixes all the ingredients together. When he finishes, he rubs a hand over his face. “I had to keep all of this secret from my dad for a long time. So . . . I know what it’s like. When there’s something so huge, and there’s no one you can talk to. So . . . you can tell Logan, if you want. But the less you’re involved in this, the happier all of us will be. Once you start dipping toes in the supernatural pool, it can be pretty hard to pull back out, and this world is dangerous.”

“Thanks.” Veronica sips her tea for a moment. “More dangerous than crazy psycho murderers?” she asks. She’s not being at all sarcastic. She’s looking for an honest answer.

In reply, Stiles lifts up his shirt to reveal the scars for her to see again. “Contrary to popular rumor,” he says dryly, “I did _not_ do this to myself.”

“Oh.” Veronica swallows and tries not to choke on her tea. “I’m glad. I mean, not that someone else did it, but that you weren’t feeling crappy enough to do that to yourself and can I shut up now?”

Stiles is smiling a little. “Yeah,” he says. “Don’t feel bad. I babble when I’m nervous, too.” He traces a hand over two of the scars. “This was another alpha werewolf.” Then he traces the ones that criss-cross it. “This was a sorcerer.” He gestures to the ones on his arms. “This was me trying to get free from a shape-shifting fear monster thing. Trust me, Veronica . . . it’s a world you don’t want to be part of. I got shoved into it, and while I wouldn’t give up the pack for anything, it’s not exactly a lifestyle choice I recommend.”

“Well, I didn’t exactly mean to get involved,” Veronica says. “I’m still getting used to the fact that the sheriff does his job. And when I went to the school, I was looking for Lucky, and instead I found his body, which . . . is sad, actually.” She shakes her head a little. “Anyway, the lizard. How do we stop the lizard? Or how do _you_ stop the lizard? No, we. I’ll be honest. I’m really bad at letting things go. I mean, I don’t want to be all involved in scary supernatural world, but _this_ , I need to finish.”

“Well,” Stiles says, spooning dough onto a cookie sheet, “it would help if we could figure out who the human side of the kanima is. Deaton said that a kanima is someone who was bitten by a wolf but . . . lost their way. Someone who doesn’t have enough of a sense of self-identity to become a werewolf. Which . . . doesn’t actually make sense to me, but hey, that’s not exactly new. So I guess the first question is, do you happen to know anyone who might have had a complete identity crisis lately?”

Veronica’s mug hits the table hard. “That, uh . . . depends. If you know who it is, what happens then?”

Stiles rubs a hand over the back of his head. “Geez. I dunno. Try to get them in touch with their inner self so they can be a werewolf, I guess? There’s no known cure for the bite itself, but I’m pretty sure we don’t want to leave him or her as a lizard monster . . .”

“Then I might know.”

“You might.” Stiles just looks at her. “Three people are dead, and you _might_ know.”

Veronica gives him a fierce glare. “Yeah, well, in case you haven’t noticed, I don’t have a whole lot in the way of friends. And you’re talking about telling one of them that they may be a giant poisonous murdering lizard monster in their off hours and we don’t know how to fix it or stop it. How eager would you be?”

“I’m not asking you to be eager,” Stiles says. “You don’t have to like this, Veronica. God knows that I don’t. Jesus, I hate this. I need a service dog and a therapist and a bad baking habit just to survive my own life. But whoever this is has to be stopped, and you know that as well as I do.”

Veronica looks down and nods a little. “I just don’t want her hurt.”

“I promise you, I will do _everything_ within my power not to,” Stiles says. “When Scott got turned against his will and practically lost his shit, we got him under control. When Danny’s best friend Jackson went off the deep end and started practicing black magic, we got him back. This isn’t her _fault_ , Veronica. We can fix this. I don’t know how yet, but we can.”

“Okay.” Veronica takes a deep breath. “Mac. It’s Mac.”

 

~ ~ ~ ~


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is sooooo lonnnnngggg I'm over here like "fuck I have so much to cover!"
> 
> Enjoy! <3

 

Stiles gives Veronica a minute to get over having said it out loud, to accept the betrayal which is perceived if not actual. Then, almost gently, he says, “What makes you sure?”

“She found out last year that her parents weren’t her birth parents. I’m the one who found the information.” Veronica chews on her lower lip. “She wasn’t adopted or anything. She was switched at birth with another baby girl. But she seemed to be okay with it, you know? They don’t really understand her, but they love her. Anyway, they go camping all the time. Over the summer, they went up into the mountains. She was excited. But they had to come home early because she got bitten by,” her fingers come up to make air quotes, “ ‘a giant freakin’ dog’. She had to get rabies shots and everything.”

“Okay,” Stiles says, “that’s pretty fucking compelling. Why don’t you call her and ask her to come over? We won’t hurt her, I promise. And I’m pretty sure the kanima can take anything we can throw at it, if we want to be honest.”

“And what the hell do you plan to tell her?” Veronica asks, pulling out her phone.

Stiles shrugs. “That she’s been possessed by a murderous lizard. Got a better idea?”

Derek’s voice drifts in from the other room. “Stiles.”

“Mm?” Stiles replies, his head tilting in that general direction.

Derek heaves a sigh of irritation. “Are you going to make me yell?”

Stiles rolls his eyes and says to Veronica, “He’s such a whiner. He just wants me to come in there in the hopes that I’ll bring him the spatula.” But he gets to his feet and says, “You can come with. No secrets.”

Derek growls. “I was trying not to advertise the fact that we could hear your entire conversation. And there had better be some cookie dough for me.”

“Later,” Stiles says. “I’m still working.” To Veronica, he says, “Werewolves have very good hearing, so yeah, they could totally hear our conversation. Privacy is a thing of the past in this house. You should see how far away we all have to run when Scott and Allison are having sex.”

“Hey!” Scott protests, blushing. “We’re not – okay, we probably are.”

Everybody nods. Even Derek.

“Hey, you nodded!” Isaac points out happily.

“We’ve got a murder lizard wandering around, which Danny is allergic to on principle alone, that is a perfectly nice girl when she’s not out killing people, and you think a little head jiggle is supposed to make me happy, hmm?” Derek replies.

“I’m surrounded by crazy people,” Veronica mutters under her breath.

“We heard that too,” Boyd says. “Just, uh, figured you should know.”

“Excuse me,” Veronica says with a bright smile. “I have to go die of complete mortification now.” She turns and tries to leave.

“None of that, none of that,” Stiles says, snagging her by the wrist. “Worse things have happened to all of us. Now, Derek, what did you actually want to say?”

“I wanted you to wait until Allison and Erica are back before having Mac come over. We may not have plans to hurt her, but she might hurt us. Especially you. And right now only one of our four best combat people is here and capable,” he continues, giving another slight nod in Isaac’s direction. “For all we know, just confronting her could cause a shift.”

“That’s true, I guess,” Stiles says, with a sigh. “It won’t hurt to have a little more time to plan, and they should be back soon, anyway.” For Veronica’s benefit, he adds, “Don’t let the big bulky guys fool you. Allison’s my chief enforcer, with Isaac as the second, mainly because he actually really enjoys beating people up on occasion. It’s good for him. Erica’s another one of our best fighters, and Derek, as you can see, is out of commission at the moment.” One hand absently rubs at Derek’s forearm as he says that, and the older man tips his head towards Stiles.

Boyd gives a shrug at Veronica’s somewhat skeptical look. “I’m more used to making school lunches and braiding hair. Four younger siblings.”

“Enforcers. It makes you sound like the mob. Besides, from what I saw on the beach that night, you don’t need any help,” Veronica says.

Stiles lets out a snort. “I can kick the ass of a teenage jock in my sleep. If _only_ that was all I had to deal with. You saw that thing at school; it handed Derek’s ass to him, and that is not easy to do. Trust me: I have enforcers for a reason. If only because when it’s a _real_ danger, the pack much prefers that I don’t try to handle it personally. And I didn’t make up the term. The language surrounding all this is . . . steeped in tradition. And if we start redefining things, nobody in our world will know what we’re talking about.”

Derek thinks about explaining to her why an alpha has enforcers, even if the alpha is a wolf and therefore more physically dangerous than Stiles – or than his betas. He even opens his mouth to do so, but then changes his mind on the basis that Stiles doesn’t want her to be deeply involved, and information always invites deeper involvement. Especially, it seems, with Veronica Mars. Instead, he just says grumpily, “It didn’t hand me my ass. I could’ve done much better if we had been facing it directly instead of trying to retreat.”

“Kanima is not listed under lizards,” Lydia announces. “Moving on.”

“Try under shapeshifters,” Stiles suggests. “I mean, that’s what it basically is. Oh, and hey, Isaac, will you run up to my room and grab my bag of mountain ash? We may need it.” To Veronica, he says, “Mountain ash is a basic blocker of supernatural power. If we put Mac inside a circle of it, she won’t be able to get out and hurt anybody.”

Isaac nods and starts to head up the stairs, but then stops. “Anything else? Wolfsbane, since she’s a wolf underneath?”

“I have no clue, but silver should work, since she’s a shifter,” Derek offers.

“Wolfsbane definitely doesn’t; I tried it at the school,” Stiles says. “Damn, how do I go through that stuff so fast?”

“Recklessness?” Scott suggests.

“Poisoning your enemies,” Derek adds.

“Scientific experimentation,” Lydia states, still bent over the bestiary. “Oh, and you gave a bunch of the extract to Mrs. Argent.”

Derek pales. “That’s terrifying.”

“Oh, it wasn’t that bad,” Stiles says. “It actually adds a really nice bite to cream soups – joking, totally joking, stop looking at me like that. I never play with wolfsbane in the kitchen.”

“Ah, found it!” Lydia says. Then she blinks. “Well. This is vaguely ominous. ‘The wolf seeks a pack, but the kanima seeks a master.’”

“So it’s still not solitary,” Derek says. “Does it say how the kanima picks its master?”

“No,” Lydia says. “The entry is pretty short. Deaton wasn’t kidding about how rare they are and how little is known.”

Stiles is frowning thoughtfully. “Does that mean that the kanima is being used as a weapon by someone else, do you think?”

“Does Mac have anything against Marcos and Peter?” Scott asks Veronica.

Veronica shakes her head. “I don’t think she even knew them, honestly.”

“Do we know anyone else who might know anything?” Derek asks. “Ravinder, or Gwen’s husband, maybe?”

“Dr. Mulroney is more likely,” Stiles says, “I’ll text Gwen along with Justin and Rebekah. See if anyone can shed some light on the subject.”

“Don’t forget to give Chris a heads-up on the asshole who bit Mac,” Derek adds, and looks at Veronica. “Did she describe the wolf to you at all?”

“Nope,” Veronica says. “She didn’t even call it a wolf. She said it was a big dog.”

Speaking while he texts away, Stiles says, “I’m going to hold off on notifying Chris until we’re sure Mac was actually bitten by a werewolf. We still don’t know for sure that she’s our shifter.”

“I didn’t smell it on her at the party,” Derek says. “I’d say I wasn’t looking for it, but . . .” She had been right on top of him at the party. He should have noticed.

“What was the phase of the moon during the party?” Boyd asks.

“One week from new,” Lydia replies crisply. “But that shouldn’t matter. A wolf smells like a wolf.”

“Yeah, but Mac isn’t a wolf. She’s a kanima,” Stiles says. “Look, there’s only one way to settle this,” he adds, looking over his shoulder. “Erica and Allison are back. Veronica, call Mac.”

Veronica looks confused for a few moments as she pulls out her phone. “But you never even met her at the party. You didn’t come out to the pool.”

“Oh, I was there,” Derek says. “I considered taking Dick’s hand off at the wrist.” He shows teeth to illustrate his point and his opinion of Dick. “Mac spent the first ten minutes cooing over me.”

“Oh. Oh my God. You’re Jack.” Veronica feels instantly embarrassed over every ‘what a good boy!’ she had even overheard directed at the ‘service dog’.

Stiles bursts into laughter. “Sorry, V, but you look like I just slapped you in the face with a fish. Yeah, Derek is Jack. That started back when there was a sorcerer trying to kill us and Derek was disinclined to let me out of his sight. The ‘service dog’ shenanigans was the way I got the school to let me bring him with me.”

“So that’s all an act?” Veronica’s not sure how she feels about that sort of lie. To be fair it doesn’t _look_ like a lie, and if it’s an act, it’s one they’ve practiced in detail.

“Yes and no,” Stiles says. “I really do have PTSD and Derek being there really does help me with that. The way he . . . keeps people from sneaking up on me. He also stops me from reacting violently if I get startled. And he’s certified and everything, because we had to get the paperwork in order.” He gives a little shrug. “Make of it what you will.”

Veronica nods, digesting that. “Doesn’t it bother you?” she asks Derek. “To be stuck as a dog, er, wolf for so many hours a day?” She couldn’t imagine that. Having nothing to really occupy her, having no hands, no words, and so many other things missing.

Derek blinks at her. “Why would it? It’s what I am just as much as I’m this. I’m not _stuck_.”

“He was born as a werewolf,” Stiles says to Veronica, “so he looks at things a little differently than others.” He stands up as Erica and Allison come in. “Hey, guys. No surprises, I hope.”

“Nope,” Erica says. Then: “Oooh, peanut butter cookies,” she says, and heads for the bowl.

“Leave some of those for me to bake, for crying out loud,” Stiles says.

“Everything’s all cleaned up,” Allison says. Then her smile goes a little feral and she pulls out a glass jar, obviously stolen from one of the science labs. She holds it up to catch the light, and it’s full of a clear, viscous goo. “And I got this.”

“She also can’t feel the left half of her hand,” Erica adds helpfully.

“So worth it,” Allison says.

Stiles takes the jar and looks it over. “This is whatever paralyzed Derek?” he assumes. “I’m not sure what good having it will do us. I mean, Deaton said it would wear off, so it’s not like we have to whip up a cure. But still. Good job.” To Derek, he adds, “How are things going over there? Can you move anything yet?”

Allison snorts and reaches to take it back, although she waits until he’s done looking. “You kidding? This is for me and Dad.”

Derek’s gaze strays upwards towards the ceiling as he does an internal inventory. “My toes and fingers a bit.” That’s good, because being physically pinned down like this is nerve-wracking and full of bad memories. The longer he’s denied movement, the harder it is not to remember.

“Okay. I’m going to go finish the cookies while we wait for Mac.” He gives Veronica a questioning look. “She on her way?”

Veronica nods and tries not to feel guilty. All she had texted Mac was that she had a ‘lead’ on the murders and needed to talk to her, and to meet her at Stiles’ place. She doesn’t know how Stiles plans to break the truth to her, and she’s not sure she wants to know.

“Okay.” Stiles lets out a breath. “Okay. This . . . is probably not going to go well, but I guess we’ll give it our best shot.”

That announcement makes Veronica want to call Mac right back and tell her to stay home. Or maybe to run the hell away. “Just . . . you have to understand that a lot of people in this town really suck, but Mac doesn’t.”

“You say that like I haven’t met her,” Stiles says. “Like I don’t like her. I have and I do.”

“Well, forgive me for being nervous. Things in my life tend to go to shit and people around me seem to get hurt.”

Stiles throws his hands up into the air. “I can’t even right now!” he announces, and marches into the kitchen, carrying the bowl of cookie dough with him.

Veronica slumps down against a wall, banging her head against it. “Go me.”

“Don’t mind him,” Scott says, a little anxiously. “He’s just not the best at dealing with shit sometimes. This is a lot to deal with. You’ve got every right to be freaking out.”

“Actually you guys make this sound pretty commonplace,” Veronica says, crossing her arms over her chest. Maybe how normal this was for them was part of the problem. This was a big deal for her, and she wasn’t talking about the werewolf weirdness. She was talking about a friend, someone she truly cared about and trusted, being in danger. “My best friend was _murdered_.” She searches for the words to explain. “I care about Mac. This makes me want to . . . to hide her in a bunker and start tasing people.”

Danny sits down next to her, folding his lanky body into the small space in the corner with her. “About a year ago,” he says, “my best friend started throwing black magic around like it was candy. I wasn’t in the pack, then. Hell, I was barely even a friend of theirs. He did . . . some really bad things with the magic. Because it corrupted him. All I wanted was my friend back, and I knew I was in _so_ far above my head. Like you, I found out about werewolves at the same time. It got to the point where I was starting to think it was impossible, that Jackson was just . . . gone. But Stiles and his pack saved him. Even though I’m honestly not sure he deserved it. They saved him.”

“So . . . I should try not to freak out?” Veronica hazards. “I can try, but I’ll make no promises.”

“Just try,” Danny says, taking her hand and giving it a squeeze. “I know Stiles can be kind of a spaz, but he’s actually pretty damned good at what he does.”

Veronica manages a nod. Then she asks, “And, uh, what exactly is that?”

“He takes care of people,” Danny says, and stands up, then extends his hand to her. “He really likes you, you know.”

“I can’t imagine why,” Veronica says. “I’m not exactly charming or cuddly.” She accepts the hand and lets Danny pull her to her feet.

“You’re sassy,” Allison says, smiling. “He likes sassy. Honestly, if he didn’t already have Derek, I’d say you two were a match made in Heaven.”

“And no one would ever be safe,” Scott adds. “I’m not sure we could take that much problem-solving power.”

“Yeah,” Veronica says, and sighs. “I just hope we can solve _this_ problem.”

“Well, let’s start by not crowding Mac when she gets here,” Boyd suggests. “It’s going to be awkward and weird enough without her feeling like we’ve got her surrounded. Maybe the rest of us should go hang out upstairs, or out back or something.”

“Who’s on show’n’tell duty?” Allison asks.

Scott frowns a little. “Derek, can you shift? I hadn’t thought to ask.”

Derek is quiet for a moment and then sucks in a shuddering breath. “Can’t shift. That’s, uh . . . terrifying,” he says, and swallows.

Stiles is immediately in the doorway, holding a spatula. “What happened?” he snaps.

“I can’t shift,” Derek tells him. He’s trying to be calm and rational, but it’s difficult. Veronica’s just blinking at them, trying to figure out how Stiles had even known something was wrong. None of them had been speaking very loudly, and Derek doesn’t sound any different from normal to her. “Not that it would help much,” Derek continues, “but I _can’t_.”

Stiles heaves a little sigh of relief, glad that it isn’t a complete disaster. “It’ll pass,” he says. “Just . . . try not to freak out.”

“Trying.” Derek manages a slow breath in and out. “I need to get out of here. I need to _run_.” The fact that he’s willing to say that with a non-pack member in the house says something about how stressed he is, but he’s holding himself together.

“Do you want me to stay in here with you?” Stiles asks.

“No,” Derek says. Stiles needs to move right now as badly as Derek does. He knows that. Since Stiles is capable, Derek won’t stop him.

“I’ll stay,” Erica says, throwing herself onto the sofa next to Derek and curling up right into his side.

Stiles lets out a breath. “Okay,” he says, and heads back into the kitchen.

“As for who will stay to talk to Mac,” Lydia says, “I think Danny should. He knows her best because they’ve talked about computer stuff, and I think Danny will be best at reassuring her because of what happened with Jackson.”

“Allison needs to stay to make the circle,” Derek reminds them. “And Erica can stay with me. Does that work for everyone?”

“That practically _is_ everyone,” Lydia says, her eyebrows arching. “You and Erica can stay in here, and we won’t need to make the circle right away. We’re going to need to explain things to her first.”

“And where am I going to go?” Derek mutters, rolling his eyes.

“Ponyville!” Erica declares, grabbing for the remote control.

Danny looks at Veronica. “That is our cue to go into the kitchen.”

“Please,” Veronica agrees. “Werewolves I can handle. Big, bad, scowling, leather-wearing Derek watching Friendship is Magic . . .? That will break my brain.”

They’ve been in the kitchen less than five minutes when Mac shows up, but it’s given them enough time to set down the framework of a plan. Veronica _hates_ the plan, but hasn’t been able to come up with anything better, The others have gone upstairs to the bedroom to prepare a room for the kanima and the mountain ash circle, and made themselves scarce. Mac is tempted to just sit down and watch ponies with Derek and Erica, but allows Veronica to shoo her into the kitchen. “So what’s up?” she asks. “Are we going to be crime-solving? Because I brought my magnifying glass.”

“Well, we’ve sort of got a lead. Ish. I’m going to let Stiles explain because for once, someone else is more informed than I am,” Veronica tells her, totally willing to throw Stiles under the bus.

Stiles narrows his eyes at her, but then continues spooning dough onto a cookie sheet and says, “Okay, so, there’s no really easy way to say this. I’m just going to launch right into it. Werewolves are real. You’re currently sitting in the den of a real, live, werewolf pack. And whatever’s killing people in town, it’s some sort of lizard shapeshifter thing.”

“And here I thought you were cool,” Mac says, turning to Veronica so they could carefully back away together. “Did we think he was cool?” Sarcasm laces her tone. Then she sees that Veronica isn’t moving, or even giving Stiles a weird look. She just looks tired. “Uh . . . okay, now I’m a little nervous, because Veronica doesn’t take her morning crazy pills without a big cup of hard evidence.”

“Try not to freak out, okay?” Danny says, and shifts into the partial form. It takes him a minute. It’s still not as smooth for him as it is for the rest of the pack, but it’s gotten better. He claims it’s because he can’t stand not looking good.

“Holy crap, your sideburns are out of control.” Mac’s tone is flat, and although that’s what she mentions, it’s clear that it isn’t the only thing she sees. Her eyes flicker over everything: the teeth, the eyes, and the claws.

“Yeah,” Danny agrees. “Can’t even shave them. They come right back.”

“That . . . that’s tragic,” Mac manages. She turns to Veronica. “Are you seeing this?”

“Yep,” Veronica says, trying not to stare. “Totally a werewolf in the kitchen. You wanna hyperventilate together?”

“I’ve got a paper bag you can breathe into,” Stiles offers.

“I might take you up on that,” Mac says, still staring. “Better yet, is there a drink in the house? Because the sheriff’s underage son will totally supply alcohol to his underage friends. Because werewolves. Oh God.”

Stiles takes out the bottle of whiskey and pours Mac a shot. “On the house,” he says. “Don’t try to process. It’ll take some time. Just roll with it for now. Danny, change back before your face freezes like that.”

“Jesus, that would be a tragedy,” Danny says, shifting back to human. “I’d never get laid again.”

“Oh, I dunno, haven’t you heard of furries?” Stiles asks, trying not to laugh.

Danny gives a dramatic shudder. “I can’t believe you just said that. You’re sick for even thinking it.”

“You think that’s bad, you should’ve heard Scott and Allison when I asked them if – hey, so, anyway,” he says hastily, realizing that the tangent he’s getting onto is not one for polite company, “sorry, Mac, drink your drink, werewolves are real, and, uh, remember how you got bit by a ‘big frickin’ dog’ on your summer vacation?”

Mac slugs back her drink, makes a variety of interesting faces, and then says to Veronica, “You told them about that? Why?” She doesn’t sound betrayed, just honestly curious because she didn’t know why it had come up or why they would care. “Wait. Are you going to try to tell me it was a werewolf or something stupid? Because it was quadripedal and had fur and no sideburns. Also, I think I’d notice if I turned into Elvis once a month.”

“Yeah, a lot of werewolves can do that,” Stiles says. “It’s called the second stage shift. Danny?”

“No problem.” There’s a pause. “I hope.” He’s still a little embarrassed by the fact that his shift isn’t as smooth as the rest of the pack. None of them quite flow like water from one to another the way Derek does, but still. He’s pretty sure Derek could do it at a dead run without missing stride. Regardless, at least he had never had to get stoned after that first time. He shucks off his shirt, hanging it over the back of his chair, then circles the kitchen table so it’s between him and Mac and then ducks down out of sight. “Sorry. It’s just that you aren’t my type, really,” he says. When he comes back around the table, he’s all wolf, recognizable to those who knew the pack by his long, lean body, dark brown hair, and dark eyes.

“Oh,” Mac says faintly. “Okay.”

Stiles refills her shot glass. Danny sits in front of her, though he doesn’t crowd her, his ears back and the tip of his tail swishing back and forth a little.

“That . . . that is so cute,” Mac says. “You adorable bastard.” She scratches behind his ears.

“Anyway, yes, we have reason to believe that you may possibly have gotten bitten by a werewolf, but we’re not sure,” Stiles says.

Danny moves to sit next to where Mac is still standing in the kitchen, leaning into her, his shoulder resting at her hip. She starts scratching at his ears again. “Wouldn’t I have noticed if I were turning into a werewolf? I mean, Danny here seems pretty aware. Or he did before,” she adds. Danny pulls back long enough to make a disgruntled noise and cock an eyebrow at her, ears forward and eyes alert. “Okay. Still very aware. Just a glutton for ear scritches. But, my point, I think I’d know.”

“Normally, you would,” Stiles says. “But we think you may be a specific kind of shapeshifter called a kanima. Basically that happens when you don’t have enough sense of identity to find your way to being a wolf. Veronica seems to think that might apply to you for some reason.”

“Hey, now we’re getting into some private info here,” Mac says, sounding a bit miffed, and Veronica is secretly grateful that Stiles made it sound like Veronica hadn’t given him any detail. “What, exactly, is a kanima?” She stops petting Danny’s ears and her gaze skips around the room a little.

“To be honest, we’re not one hundred percent sure,” Stiles says. “We’ve never met one before. It seems to be a shape-shifting creature where the two halves aren’t aware of each other. Which is very unusual. Werewolves, when they’re in wolf form, still retain the consciousness of the human that they are when they’re not, y’know, wolves.”

“You’re not answering my question and you know it,” Mac snaps at him. “Is it a hedgehog, a flying squirrel, an abominable snowman, what? Is it a lizard? Is that where this is going?”

Stiles sighs. “So much for trying to ease you into it. Yes. It’s a lizard.” He pulls out his phone and slaps it down on the table displaying the one picture he managed to get of the kanima. It’s blurry and at a terrible angle, but the scales and tail are pretty obvious. “And it’s killing people.” He looks Mac in the eye. “Which means you might be killing people.”

“Oh God.” Mac sits down on the floor, hard. “Why? Why would I do that? I didn’t even know them. And I don’t care that my whole family is stupidly blonde. It’s like being adopted. They kept me because they love me.” She sniffles and rubs at her face. “Even if they do love corn dogs. I don’t know how anyone can love corn dogs,” she adds, her voice choking. Danny lays down next to her.

“Mac, this isn’t your fault,” Stiles says. “We’re not even sure if we’re right, but if we _are_ right, it’s like . . . it’s not _you_. It’s another thing that lives in your body. That . . . sounded creepier than I meant it to be, maybe I should stop talking.”

Mac gives a watery laugh and plays with Danny’s fur, then announces, “Danny, I’m gonna hug you now.” She leans over, laying her head on his shoulders. Without moving, she asks, “So how do we find out if it’s me killing people? What do we do if it is? Are we talking silver bullet here?”

“Holy _shit_ , Mac,” Stiles says, “we’re not going to kill you. I mean, I’m ninety-five percent sure we’re not going to have to kill you. Really. We’re going to find a way to work it out.”

“Okay,” Mac says, sniffling again. “Because . . . when I get mad at people, I ruin their e-mail accounts with spam or sell purity test results and buy myself a car. I don’t _kill_ people.”

“Honestly, from what we can find, you don’t have any reason to kill these people,” Stiles says. “We think someone may be . . . talking to the kanima. Giving it direction. Somehow.”

“That . . . that’s great. I’m most likely turning into a giant people murdering lizard because my subconscious is still upset over corndogs, and I’m taking orders from someone else.” She squishes her face into Danny’s fur. “Worst camping trip ever.”

“Well, the good news is, I think if we can get you over the whole corndog thing, you can maybe be an actual werewolf and then there will be no more murdering lizard, and the second good news is, cookies.” Stiles reaches over and takes the first tray of cookies out of the oven, sliding the second tray in. Danny looks up at this.

“There’s no hope for the corndogs,” Mac says, hiccupping a little. “I even read the ingredients to my mother once. Her response was to promise to make me veggie burgers from now on even though she thinks they’re weird. And she has. Every time. Because she knows I likes them.”

“Look, I’m not saying we’re going to solve your identity crisis overnight,” Stiles says. “I’m honestly not even sure we can. But if we think of you like the marionette, we need to figure out who’s pulling your strings. It’s possible that if we can stop _them_ , we won’t even need to worry about the kanima. We don’t know that it’s naturally inclined to kill – just that it’s naturally inclined to take direction.”

“So . . . it’s really nothing like me at all. I don’t like thinking of myself as a puppet. It’s creepy. And if someone’s doing that to me and making me kill people . . .” A few more tears fall and she angrily wipes them away. “I’m going to make them _so_ sorry. You know, if I can from jail or whatever.” She knows enough about the law to know that just because it wasn’t her idea doesn’t make innocent. She doesn’t feel very innocent. “How do we find out if I’m not a creepy lizard puppet?”

“I’m working on finding that out,” Stiles says. “For the moment, what’s important is making sure that if it _is_ you, you can’t hurt anybody else. Will you let us, uh, secure you? It shouldn’t be too bad. No handcuffs or anything. Just a locked room and some magic fairy dust.”

There’s a long moment of silence. Mac is clearly torn. On the one hand, she doesn’t want to hurt anyone. On the other hand, even without handcuffs, being locked alone in a room sounds terrifying. Like the beginning of a horror movie, no matter how decent these people are. Werewolves are half the script in a nutshell. She looks between Veronica and Stiles. “I don’t want to be left alone. I’ll agree if I’m not shoved into a corner or something.”

“Trust me, we have no plans to leave you alone,” Stiles says. “If you turn into a lizard, we wanna know about it.”

“Okay,” Mac says. She takes a deep breath. “But first I get cookies. I think I’ve earned them.”

“That seems totally fair.” Stiles shoves the tray over to her, and refills her shot glass. “Oh, one last question. I assume you would’ve mentioned it if you had some sort of alibi for the first two murders, but uh, where were you about two hours ago?”

Mac takes two cookies because she knows they’ll be good. She snatches a third because she’s had a shitty day and she deserves it. Then she eyes the tray and takes a fourth because she’s actually hungry, and gives everyone a look that suggests that if they mention it, she’ll cram a cookie up their nose. Only after biting into the first does she answer Stiles. “I went home after school and was doing homework and screwing around on the ‘net. Then I had dinner. After that . . .” She thinks harder. “I don’t . . . remember exactly what I . . . maybe I fell asleep? Oh God, this is bad, isn’t it.” She drops her stack of cookies on the table and pulls her computer out of her bag, setting it on the table and flipping it open.

Stiles glances sidelong at Danny and wishes that one of the more experienced wolves was there in the room. “Are you hungry?” he asks Mac casually. “I could make you something. You know, the least I could do.”

Mac waves him off. “Starved, but that’s not the issue right now. What times are you trying to account for?”

Danny shoots Stiles a worried look but manages to contain the whine. He might not be as experienced as the others, but he knows that hunger and healing go together. He remembers vividly how he wanted to eat everything in sight after he was turned.

Veronica is the one who answers, since she’s the one who found Lucky’s body. “Around seven thirty.”

There’s a brief pause while Mac flips through a couple things on her computer. Then she reaches out for the shot glass and downs the contents. “I’m screwed.” She closes the laptop. “Give me your magic fairy dust.”

“Follow me,” Stiles says, and stands up. He leads her through the house and into the walk-in closet in one of the bedrooms. They’ve cleared it out for the purpose, and put some other things in instead. “You, uh, may be in here for a few hours, so . . . I laid in some supplies.” There’s a bean bag chair and a blanket, a gallon of water and a few cans of Coke, a box of crackers and a few apples. “You want anything else?”

Mac is hugging her computer to her chest like a favorite stuffed animal and has the cookies in one hand. “No. No, this is fine.”

Stiles clears his throat. “Uh. No computer. And no phone. No offense, Mac, but I don’t want you calling your parents and saying I’ve kidnapped you. It could get _really_ awkward. Plus, if you do shift, they could get damaged.”

Mac stops moving. “O-Oh.” The computer is clutched tighter for a few moments and she looks at what she knows is going to be her prison for a little while. But it’s better than killing people. She takes a few deep breaths and squares her shoulders. “If I can’t have the internet, get me something to read and like a puzzle book, sudoku or something. Or I’ll go bonkers. Killer lizard or not.”

“Fair enough,” Stiles says. “Be right back,” he adds, and leaves the room at a trot.

Veronica looks at Mac and says, “I guess ‘are you okay’ would be a really, really stupid question.”

“A little, yeah,” Mac says. “But, you know, I appreciate the effort.” She’s quiet for a minute. “I looked up the access records. Nothing from around six thirty until about eight fifteen. And it was unlocked. I _never_ leave it unlocked. My brother.” She shrugs. “I love him, but he’s a shit sometimes.”

“Yeah,” Veronica says. She shifts from foot to foot, not knowing what else to say.

Fortunately for her sanity, Stiles comes back in a few seconds later. He’s got an armful of books, some longer than others, including two books of puzzles. “One word, one math,” he says. “We’ve got a lot of variety in this place.” There are two pencils there as well. Allison is behind him, carrying a burlap sack and her usual reassuring smile. “She’s got the fairy dust. You ready?”

“No. But I’m doing it anyway.” Mac hands her computer and her phone to Veronica. “You know what will happen if anything happens to my baby, right?”

Veronica nods and salutes, carefully setting them down on the bed in the room. She watches in interest as Mac sits down on the bean bag and Allison walks around her in a slow circle, eyes half-lidded, getting the edges of the circle as close to the edges of the walls of the closet as she can. “So . . . why don’t you do this?” she asks Stiles in a low voice, not wanting to break Allison’s concentration.

“Can’t,” Stiles says, and adds without a shred of remorse, “I had my magic stripped. I was good at it. Too good. Magic is addictive, and the better you are at it, the more addictive it gets.”

“So, what? Allison is only so-so at it?” Veronica asks, and then, “Wait, how are werewolves not magic?”

“Werewolves are magical creatures,” Stiles says. “We’re talking about doing actual sorcery. Just because you’re made of DNA doesn’t mean you can build it with your own hands. And yeah, exactly, Allison is so-so at it. She’s also got a hell of a lot more self-control than I do, so she wasn’t worried about getting addicted to it like I was.”

Allison closes the circle at the doorway of the closet and then steps out into the open room. “Done.” Her tone is cheerful. “This should keep anyone from trying to make off with you.”

“Awesome,” Mac says, her tone a little flat. “I don’t feel any different unless you count kind of claustrophobic.”

“I feel ya, sister,” Stiles says. He lets out a breath. “Okay. I’m now going to go e-mail everyone I know. You have an apple, do some crossword puzzles. Allison and Danny will stay in here, keep you company, and call me if you turn into a lizard. I’ll be back as soon as I know something.”

“Great.” Mac gives him a sarcasm-laced smile and a big thumbs-up. She flops back on the bean bag like a starfish as Stiles leaves the room. “Veronica, when did this become my life?”

Veronica settles Indian-style right by the door. “Don’t ask. This is weird even for me.”

“So . . .” Mac frowns suddenly, as the specifics of the last half hour settle in, past the shock of werewolves and giant lizard monsters. “Wait a minute. Why did you ask about my whereabouts _today_?” Her eyes suddenly go wide. “Was someone else murdered?”

Veronica cringes a little as Mac sits up to stare at her. “Lucky, the janitor.”

“At school?” Mac asks, and Veronica nods. “The one that buys Logan beer and is kinda creepy but was all screwed up from being in the war? That Lucky? ‘Cause I always sorta felt bad for him, I mean, yeah he was a creeper but he obviously . . .” Mac’s babbling trails off.

“Yeah, that Lucky,” Veronica says.

Mac lets out a breath. “Let’s talk about something else. _Anything_ else.”

Veronica’s quiet for a moment, then grins. “How hilarious is it that Dick still doesn’t know where the clitoris is even though Erica asks him every time she sees him?”

“He’s been given diagrams at this point, too,” Allison pipes up.

They spend about half an hour making fun of Dick and feeling bad for his poor brother who has to put up with him, and then Mac realizes she might have to explain to her boyfriend that she’s a lizard monster and has a bit of a freak out. Allison and Veronica get her through that, and then Danny distracts her by talking about computer stuff, and they’re still talking about when they hear Stiles down the hall, his voice raised slightly.

“No, I know, but if that’s what Deaton says – ”

There’s a low rumble in response, the words inaudible.

“Look, I don’t like this either, Dad, but you _know_ how it is in my world sometimes. Sometimes there aren’t easy answers.”

Allison and Danny both stiffen, because this obviously doesn’t sound good, but at the same time he’s their alpha. Veronica’s eyes narrow and she looks at the door to the hallway. “I’ll, uh . . . go ask what’s going on,” she says, and leaves the room.

Out in the hallway, Stiles says, “Look, Deaton’s never been wrong before. I trust him. If there’s really no way to contain the kanima, it becomes a ‘good of the one versus the good of the many’ situation. It sucks, but I can’t change that.”

Mac hunches in on herself, her knees pulled up under her chin. “What happened to finding the person using me?” she asks the room at large.

Allison goes to stand in the door to the hallway, looking out with a grim expression. Stiles lowers his voice and only snippets of the conversation are audible.

“ – I don’t think we can – ”

“ – we don’t have time for this – ”

“ – if the mountain ash won’t hold her – ”

And then Stiles raises his voice again. “Enough! I’m in charge here. Innocent lives are at stake. I don’t like this any more than the rest of you, but if that’s the way it has to be, then that’s it.”

Allison bows her head, seemingly giving in. “You want me to do it?” she asks, speaking quietly. “My aim is better. It’ll be quicker for her.”

“Yeah, but use your bow. The less mess, the better – don’t fucking _look_ at me like that, Veronica, I’m not happy about this – ”

Mac stares at Allison’s back in a sort of shocked horror, remembering that Stiles had said there was a ninety-five percent chance that they wouldn’t have to kill her. But she can understand. She’s already killed three people. She opens her mouth to say something, but it’s more of a yawn. Suddenly she’s so tired that she just can’t stay awake, and her eyes slide closed. Moments later, there’s the sound of an angry hiss and the kanima slams its shoulder into the barrier created by the ash.

“Holy _crap_!” Danny yelps, and scampers from the room to hide behind Stiles. “Fucking lizards!”

“Go downstairs,” Stiles snaps at him, going back into the bedroom with Allison on his heels. The kanima lets out a shrill scream, a noise that’s like fingernails on a blackboard, and again throws itself against the circle. “Well, that’s one question answered for sure,” Stiles says with a sigh, rubbing his hands over his face.

Veronica creeps into the room after Allison and Stiles. She notices that Allison has a gun in one hand, but it’s only visible from behind, as she has her hand tucked partly behind her leg, the gun hidden in the folds of her skirt. The brunette sighs and says, “I’m not really fond of the answer. If it was Dick or something I would’ve said to just shoot it and have done, but I like Mac.”

“Oh my God,” Veronica mumbles, putting a hand over her mouth. It really is true. Her friend is the one who has been killing people.

“Mm hm,” Stiles says. He takes a step closer to the circle, and Veronica sees every muscle in Allison’s shoulders tense. “Hey,” he says to the kanima. “Stop clawing at the walls and listen to me. You want out? Then talk to me. I don’t want to talk to the puppet. I want to talk to the master.”

The kanima looks him dead in the eye and then hisses before deliberately looking away. But she does stop clawing at the walls and settles into the middle of the allotted space, tail lashing.

“Okay,” Stiles says, letting out a breath. “Okay. We’re not the bad guys here. Maybe you had a reason to kill those people. It’s said that kanimas go after murderers. Those people that were killed . . . were they hurting other people? Is that why you did it?”

The kanima hisses again, but then its head tilts to one side, regarding Stiles like he’s some sort of curiosity. “They deserved it,” she says, and the voice is something terrible, distorted and scratchy, deeper than Mac’s own voice, but there’s still just enough Mac in it that Veronica shudders like she’s been slapped.

“Of course they did,” Stiles says, his voice gentle. “They must have been terrible people, right? Tell me why.”

“They can’t keep secrets,” the kanima says. “No one can keep secrets the way I can.”

“I can keep a secret,” Stiles says. “Look at all the secrets I’ve kept.”

“No!” the kanima shouts, and hurls itself at the invisible wall. Stiles flinches backwards despite himself and nearly falls. “You are nothing. No one will know. I will make sure no one ever knows. I will kill anyone who betrays our silence!”

“Who – ” Stiles begins, but then the kanima convulses suddenly and collapses into a heap. Stiles starts forward, and the figure shudders and begins to change. Then it’s Mac again, lying curled up in a fetal position in the middle of the circle. “Jesus Christ,” Stiles says.

After a moment or two, Mac sits up and looks at the three people in the room. “I – I didn’t see Danny leave,” she manages. “Guess he didn’t want to watch.” She swallows. “So, just, I dunno, write me a good suicide note and tell my parents I love them, okay?”

“Jesus,” Stiles says again, and turns and grabs Veronica as her knees start to give. He helps her sit down. He tries to kick his brain back into gear, but it’s like that’s all he can say. “Jesus.”

Allison recovers first. “We’re not going to kill you, Mac. We just wanted the kanima to feel threatened so we could force you to shift. That was the only way we could be sure it was you.”

“Oh.” Mac’s quiet for a minute. “Did it work?”

“Uh, yeah,” Stiles says. “Yeah, you . . . you are definitely a lizard monster. If, if you’d like to see the recording to prove it, you can, but . . . I might not recommend it right now.”

“No. I’m . . . I’m good.” There’s another moment of quiet. “You . . . you totally suck!” she bursts out, and starts crying again. “I thought you were going to kill me! You talked about helping me and finding out who was using me, and then you . . . you _trapped_ me in here and I thought you were going to kill me!”

“It was a shit thing to do,” Stiles agrees, “and the fact that it was necessary doesn’t make it any less awful.” He gestures and says, “Veronica, you can go in the circle if you want. It won’t stop you, since you’re one hundred percent human.”

Veronica wastes no time getting to her feet and moving into the closet to sit next to Mac. She pulls the other girl into a hug and thinks about how strange it is that it was Logan, of all people, who had given her practice in the art of physical comfort.

“Okay.” Stiles lets out a breath. “Mac, we’re not going to kill you. I’m really sorry we scared you like that, but I couldn’t think of any other way to be _sure_ of what we were dealing with. My dad’s getting home in a few minutes. We’re going to figure out who’s pulling the puppet strings and we _are_ going to fix this. Okay?”

“Okay.” Mac wipes her face dry with her sleeve. “And get me out of here. I’ll stay in the fairy dust circle, but not here. It’s creeping me out.” She gives a post-crying hiccup. “Can I have a window . . . or go watch ponies with the others?”

“We can definitely manage that,” Stiles says.

 

~ ~ ~ ~


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And then there was plot and stuff~
> 
> For those who aren't Veronica Mars fans and didn't know about this, this chapter does carry a trigger warning for talk of pedophilia and sexual assault of minors.

Allison smoothly tucks the gun into a holster that she wears on her thigh, hidden by her skirt, and she moves to the closet doorway before crouching down. Instead of actually brushing away the grey-black glittering sand like dust, she inhales, puts her hand over the line palm to palm, then moves them away from each other as if she’s parting a curtain, exhaling as she does so. The ash sprays out, breaking the circle. Allison then stands and moves out of Mac’s way.

Veronica helps Mac to her feet and out of the closet. She’s a little wobbly, but manages to walk on her own. Then she says, “Wait, let me grab the book I was reading.” She reaches down and picks it up. There’s a moment while she studies it, and then she looks up and smacks Stiles across the face with it.

“Ow!” Stiles says.

“Serves you right,” Mac snaps.

“Yeah,” Stiles says, waving away Allison as she moves forward instinctively. “I’ll agree with that.”

Allison shakes her head, but it’s mostly in amusement. “I’ll have to remember that books make a good weapon.” She leans down and picks up the sack of mountain ash. They leave everything else in the closet and head downstairs. Derek has been propped up on the sofa now and is flexing his hands, as if he can force feeling back into them. It takes a little while, but they manage to get everything sorted out and get Mac into a circle. Stiles lets her have her phone back, telling her that if she really wants to call 911 for a rescue, she can.

“Uh, I don’t think it would do much good. Wouldn’t it be your dad who responded?” Mac asks, but she takes the phone gratefully, because it makes her feel more normal. “Anyway, I’m good. In here. Not being able to murder anyone else.”

“Okay then.” Stiles claps both hands and then looks up as the front door opens. “Oh, hey, Dad. Good timing.”

Sheriff Stilinski walks into the living room and looks at the teenaged girl in the mountain ash circle. He rubs one hand over his face. “If I say I don’t want to know . . .”

“I’ll say I’m deeply sorry because it has to do with the murders,” Stiles says.

Mac wilts. “I’m sorry.”

Veronica steps into the circle and sits next to her. “Not your fault. There’s a creepy voice.”

“Uh huh,” was the sheriff’s response as he surveys his living room. “I’d like to say that it’s weird finding a teenager in a magic circle in my living room, but no, that’s actually not the first time that’s happened.” He eyes Derek and Erica on the sofa, the way Erica is cuddled up to him and the repeated flexing of his hands. That isn’t normal. Derek is tactile with the pack, but really only cuddly with Stiles outside of the puppy piles. “Derek, you okay?”

“No, but I will be,” Derek says, his voice flat and clipped.

Stiles walks over to him. In one motion he smoothes a hand over Derek’s hair and tilts his head forward a little so his father can see the still-healing wound. “That,” he says, “is a wound made by a shapeshifter called a kanima, for the purpose of getting its paralytic venom into the spinal cord and immobilizing its victims. So, back when you said the wound was weird and you felt like something was hinky about this case, you were absolutely right! Good sleuthing, Dad.”

“Jesus.” Stilinski makes his way around the sofa and first gives Derek’s shoulder a comforting squeeze, then looks at the wound. “Well, I know by the fact that I’m still looking at it that it’s healing pretty damned slow.” He moves back some, then asks with obvious concern, “But it is healing? This isn’t permanent?”

Almost simultaneously, Mac squeaks. “I tried to kill your boyfriend?! Oh my God, I am so sorry.” She looks like she wishes the floor would open up and swallow her.

Patiently, Stiles says to Mac, “No, the _kanima_ tried to kill my boyfriend. You were just along for the ride.” To his father, he says, “Yeah, Deaton says it’ll work its way out of his system in a couple hours. He’s already better than he was. Fortunately, the rest of us got out with some minor scrapes and bruises. We brought Veronica into the loop because there really wasn’t a good way to explain to her why a person-sized lizard had just tried to kill her, and through Veronica, we found the kanima’s other shape.” He gestures to Mac.

“So we aren’t talking about shifters like you guys, then.” Stilinski waves a hand at the members of the pack that are present. “You’re the same regardless of form. We’re looking at something like . . . what? More like supernatural personality disorder? Explain to me what you’ve got, and then I’ll go back to the station for the case files and we’ll see what we can sort out as a group.”

“You know, there’s no real consensus on whether or not MPD actually exists,” Stiles says. “A lot of people think that it’s actually therapist-induced, especially since cases tend to cluster, but then proponents of the disorder say that’s because a lot of therapists don’t recognize it – ”

“Stiles, focus,” Sheriff Stilinski says, not unkindly.

“Right, sorry, anyway, given the controversial nature of MPD, let’s say that it’s more like demonic possession. Er, sorry if that freaks you out, Mac, but from what I’ve seen, that’s what it’s like. You don’t have any control over when you change, and there’s clearly something . . . _other_ . . . that’s controlling the kanima. Dad, you may want to see the video.”

“Don’t worry,” Mac says. “I think I’m settling into a steady level of freaked.”

“I don’t think I really want to see it, but show it to me anyway,” Stilinski replies.

Stiles waves him into the kitchen so Mac won’t have to see it. He had the webcam on his laptop recording, so he sets the computer down and pulls up the video. Sheriff Stilinski watches it and gives a shudder. “Okay, that . . . is not the creepiest thing I’ve ever seen, but I think it comes in second only to that spell Stone had set up in the warehouse. Other than that . . .”

“You know what, I think I’m actually _more_ freaked out,” Stiles says, “but maybe that’s just time and distance.”

“Also, you didn’t see it nearly kill your son,” Stilinski says, putting an arm around Stiles’ shoulders.

“Right, yeah, that . . . that could also affect it.” Stiles leans into his father’s shoulder for a minute. “Jesus. I nearly lost . . .” He has to swallow hard before he can speak. In the aftermath of everything that had happened, he had shoved down any emotional response to what had happened. He had Derek to take care of. He had to explain things to Veronica, and then figure out what to do with Mac. It seemed like a world of things had happened in the past hour. He realizes that he’s shaking so hard that his knees are wobbly. “He couldn’t move. I thought he might . . . he fell into the _pool_. And I had to leave him there to save Veronica.”

Stilinski moves and pulls his son into a proper hug, partly so he can take some of his weight before he falls, although he’s aware that he might have to let go and give Stiles some space. Hugs can still feel crowding and claustrophobic to him. “I’m sorry.” He rubs one hand up and down Stiles’ back. “But you did good. Everyone is safe. You did good.”

Stiles lets out a shuddering breath and hugs his father back tightly, burying his face in the man’s shoulder. It takes him a minute to steady himself out, but he does it. “I’m okay,” he finally says. “Just tired. And I’ll feel better once Derek’s back on his feet.”

“He looks a little freaked out, I have to admit. But I suppose that might be because he’s not used to things not healing.” He loosens his hold, but doesn’t end the hug until Stiles is ready.

“He doesn’t like being immobile. Like I don’t like being in enclosed spaces.” Stiles leans more heavily against his father. “And poor Mac. I mean, just . . . poor Mac. I needed to be sure it was her. I had to be _sure_ , and I knew the kanima would take over if she was threatened, so I made her think the only option we had was to kill her. Jesus, I’m a bastard sometimes.”

“You know, I’m glad Kate’s dead, because so many things can be traced back to her cruelty and sometimes I can’t say for sure what I would do if I could get at her,” Sheriff Stilinski says. Like when he thinks about how Peter essentially took what was left of Stiles’ childhood, and now his son is in a position to have to do things like threaten to kill his friends. Peter wouldn’t have been insane if it hadn’t been for Kate. Like how Derek is sitting paralyzed on the sofa, ready to crawl out of his own skin because he’s thinking about what Kate did to him and how he hates being tied down. “Have you sorted things out with Mac? Does she know he’s safe?”

“I think so.” Stiles gives a gusty sigh and finally lets his father go, backing away. “As safe as I can make her feel, anyway. I can’t stop her from shifting again, but I think whoever’s controlling the kanima realized that we could actually hear what it was saying, and it made her change back to Mac before we could try to get more information out of it.”

“Which means that as long as we have her, it won’t want her to shift again, so she’s protected from that. So we need to find out who’s pulling the strings and then . . . pin the murders on them, somehow, because I’m not sending an innocent girl to jail just because she had the crap luck to be the murder _weapon_.”

“Honestly, even if we wanted to send Mac to jail, I don’t think we could,” Stiles says. “She has no connection to the victims, no motive, and the only physical evidence left has been kanima evidence, not Mac evidence.” He gives a little shrug. “But we don’t want to send Mac to jail. I . . . don’t know about pinning the murders on whoever’s behind them. That could be tricky. And so far I have virtually no information on how the puppet master controls the kanima. I’m waiting to hear more from some of my contacts.”

“Well, let me go get what we have at the station and we’ll see what we can sort out. And we’re ordering pizza for dinner. I get pizza as a reward for flagrantly breaking the law and sharing case files with civilians.” He raises his voice a little. “Erica, I’m putting you in charge of ordering pizza for dinner.”

“Okay, Papa Stilinski!” she calls back.

Stiles takes his father by the wrist. “Don’t go alone. Take Isaac and, and Boyd. Okay? Please?”

Sheriff Stilinski holds his hands up in surrender. “Okay. I’ll even bring them in with me.”

Stiles wilts and leans against him in relief. “Thanks.”

His father gives him another squeeze and then takes off. Stiles goes back to finish the cookies, giving himself some time in the kitchen. When he comes back into the living room, everyone is watching My Little Ponies. Veronica is sitting in the circle with Mac, one comforting arm around her shoulders. Derek is leaning over, touching his toes, still working feeling and motion into his body. He looks up as Stiles comes in with the tray of fresh cookies. “How are you guys holding up?” Stiles asks.

“I’ve had better days,” Derek says, from somewhere around his knees. Once he sits up, he continues in a philosophical manner. “I’ve also had worse. I think I’ll be able to shift soon,” he adds. This is clearly a relief to him.

“I’m less hysterical,” Mac offers.

“Good to know,” Stiles says. He sits down next to Derek and holds a cookie out to him.  Derek reaches out to take it, misses on the first try, but nabs it on the second. “You want some, Mac?”

Mac nods. “Absolutely. I’m starving.” She perks up suddenly as the thought of food occurs to her. “And hey, can one of those pizzas be vegetarian? Normally I try not to be a pain at other people’s houses, but I think I’ve earned it.”

“You . . . you’re a vegetarian?” Scott says, as Veronica reaches out of the circle to transport the cookies across. “A vegetarian . . . werewolf,” he says, and several people start laughing, nearly hysterical with the sudden release of tension.

“Oh, Jesus,” Stiles gasps out. “I have to text everyone I know to tell them that we’ve found a vegetarian werewolf.”

Mac frowns at them. “What, like this has never happened before?”

“Not that I know of,” Derek says. “If someone was a vegetarian but then is turned, usually the predatory instinct is enough to put an end to it.”

“Nope,” Mac says cheerfully. “The thought of meat is still super gross.”

“Maybe because she’s not a werewolf, exactly?” Veronica offers.

Allison shakes her head. “No, the kanima is definitely a predator. I guess Mac just really hates meat.”

“So, one veggie pizza it is,” Erica says, making notes. Ordering pizza is old hat for them at this point, although Stiles tries to limit it to nights when his father is working late, so it doesn’t matter that not everyone is present.

As she’s dialing her phone, Danny pokes his head in from around the corner. “What’s so funny?” he asks.

“Where’ve you been hiding?” Stiles asks, somewhat amused despite himself. He pats the sofa next to himself. “Come tell alpha Stiles all about it.”

Danny lets out a snort at that statement, but doesn’t hesitate to sit down next to Stiles and nestle up to him. “Lizards.” He offers Mac a genuine smile. “No offense.”

“None taken,” she says.

“Apparently I have a thing against lizards.” Danny makes a face. “Remind me to punch Jackson when we get home.”

“You need a reminder to do that?” Stiles asks dryly. “All I have to do is look at him.”

“Yes, but that’s because he’s a gigantic dick that you can’t stand. Which he deserves.” Danny raises his hands in surrender. “But with me, he’s a moderate dick who’s my best friend.”

“Okay, so, there’s a story here,” Mac says, her mouth full of cookie. “Tell the story. I need to be distracted, and I want to hear about why Danny doesn’t like lizards.”

Stiles laughs a little, but she has good reason to not want to sit around and think about what’s going on. So he launches into the story, starting with Derek getting sick and the voodoo doll, the sending that attacked him in the parking lot, showing them the scars, and then Jackson becoming addicted to black magic. The damage to his beloved Jeep, Scott’s brain fade, and finally close encounters of the reptilian kind. He leaves out what happened to Lydia, because it’s not really relevant and none of their business, and skims over what happened to Stone at the end because he’s had enough of being a cold-blooded killer for one day. For the most part, Veronica and Mac listen without comment.

“So Jackson turned out okay in the long run?” Mac asks.

“Yeah, he’s now the same charming douche he was in the beginning,” Stiles says, rolling his eyes.

“So generous!” Danny says. “You’re allowing him charming.”

“Well, the dude’s had more girlfriends than I’ve ever had, so I figure I have to give him at least that much,” Stiles says.

“That’s only because he takes my fashion advice,” Danny says, with a perfectly straight face.

Lydia bursts into giggles and flops onto the sofa, into Danny’s lap. “Yes, that’s exactly why I dated him,” she says. “His wonderful fashion sense.”

“It’s Armani,” Scott says, and several people crack up.

Danny automatically curls an arm around Lydia. One of the things he likes most about being in the pack was having Lydia back in his life. “Of course. Nothing but the best,” he says, in a fake snooty voice. He does wear a lot of high end brands and expensive things, but he’s never thought less of those who don’t. It’s just his style.

The front door opens then, and Isaac and Boyd come in piled with boxes. Sheriff Stilinski is behind them, wrangling a bulletin board. Stiles and Scott stand up to help. The pizza arrives a few minutes later, as they’re getting everything set up. They take down some of the pictures to hang up the bulletin board, and move in a table to lay down the files. Lydia and Allison get plates and sodas and share out the food while Stiles and his father sort the files into chronological order.

“Okay,” Stiles finally says. “Let’s start with what we know, from the beginning. Dad, you wanna take it?”

Sheriff Stilinski nods. If it troubles him to be sharing confidential police information with a bunch of teenagers, he doesn’t let it show. “Okay. October third, first victim, Peter Ferrer, seventeen. Killed in his house sometime between ten and eleven PM, found the next morning. Cause of death was blunt force trauma, tox screen negative, nothing unusual except for a wound on the back of his neck, about two inches long. He had some other knife wounds – supposed knife wounds – so it was assumed he had gotten them in the struggle. No significant other, no real enemies although he was flamboyantly gay and some of the other kids at school harassed him about it.

“October sixteenth, second victim, Marcos Oliveres, eighteen. Disappeared walking home from school, found later in a dumpster. Cause of death again blunt force trauma, no “knife” wounds except the one on the back of the neck.” For Veronica and Mac’s benefit, he says, “At this point I became concerned about those wounds and asked Stiles if he knew of any supernatural creatures that might cause them. He didn’t.”

“I asked around,” Stiles says, “but nobody recognized them.”

“So we pursued a number of leads, but the two victims didn’t really seem to have much in common. They travelled in different social circles, had different friends, lived in different neighborhoods. They only had one class together, journalism. Marcos was on the baseball team but Peter wasn’t involved in any organized sports. Then we found out that Marcos and Peter had both been members of the same website for gay or questioning teens in Neptune. We’ve been working that angle but so far haven’t really gotten anywhere with it. Which brings us to tonight. The third victim. Tommy ‘Lucky’ Dohanic, school janitor. By all accounts he has virtually nothing in common with the first two victims. He’s in his early twenties, back from a stint in Iraq, honorable discharge. Wounded in battle, behaves oddly and has problems with alcohol, so . . .”

“Likely PTSD,” Stiles says, his fists clenching and unclenching.

Stilinski gives a little nod. “Former student of Neptune High, from a good family but obviously fallen on some hard times lately. Killed at school, where he was working, at around seven thirty PM, same cause of death.” He shakes his head a little and says, “I’m at a loss as to how he might be connected to either of the two victims. If it weren’t for the supernatural angle, I would be tempted say the killings are random, but that’s obviously not the case here.”

Veronica looks over at Mac, who has grown pale with the introduction of Lucky’s photo, and squeezes her hand. “It _wasn’t you_ ,” she says firmly.

“But it is me,” Mac says. “Or something inside me that’s there because my subconscious can’t get over the fact that I’m sort of adopted or something.” No matter how she looks at it, she can’t imagine suddenly trying to leave the parents she grew up with, her mother who makes her veggie burgers or her dad who builds her endless bookshelves. They don’t understand her, but they love her. “How did I not notice I’d been having blackouts?”

“Magic,” Stiles says. “If you can’t accept ‘it wasn’t you’, can you accept ‘nobody blames you’?”

Mac nods. “I can work with it, at least.”

“Good,” Stiles says. “So now here’s the question of the day. I went to the school to go for a run on the track, so I win the day’s award for ‘right place at the right time’. But you went there looking for Lucky. Why? Did you know he might be the next victim?”

“No, I had no clue,” Veronica says. “I was working something completely different. Gia – Woody Goodman’s daughter – had a stalker. I worked out that it was Lucky, but I didn’t really have any evidence. I was hoping I could find something in his workspace that would help me prove it.”

Derek’s lip curls back at the mention of Woody Goodman, just a little, before he controls the wolflike expression. “Of course he has a kid,” he mutters.

“Did you find anything?” Allison asks. “Or did you find his body first?”

“I found his body and, uh, a lizard monster,” Veronica says, shuddering slightly as she thinks back on it. “That’s when Stiles showed up.”

“And I was like ‘oh hey Veronica holy crap what the hell is that’,” Stiles says. “Not my best moment, I don’t think. Then we ran like hell.”

“I didn’t see anything when we were cleaning up the scene, but we weren’t really looking, either,” Allison says. She looks over at Erica. “You?”

“Jack shit. And I couldn’t smell a damned thing past the bleach,” Erica grouses, before snatching up another piece of pizza.

“But they had to be connected,” Allison says. “They all _knew_ something.”

“Right,” Stiles says. “Our exchange with the kanima was brief but very telling. He’s keeping a secret, and he’s killing anyone else who knows.”

Sheriff Stilinski is frowning. “You said Lucky had been stalking Gia. How did you find that out?”

“About a month ago, he sent a threatening tape to Woody Goodman’s office,” Veronica says. “Logan found it while he was doing some internship there. At first they thought it was an anti-incorporation thing. But it was creepy. Just a video of the inside of the Goodman house while the family was eating dinner. At first Woody asked my dad to investigate, but then he made up some story about it being the gardener. He got really squirrelly about it, but my dad let it go. But then someone had made a tape of Gia, which reminded me of it. I tracked Lucky down from videos other people had made at the same time – it was her younger brother’s soccer game, so some other parents were filming.”

“So Lucky stalked Goodman’s daughter but hated Goodman himself,” Stiles says, frowning faintly. “I guess the two things could be correlative or even causative.”

“He could have been planning to hurt Goodman through Gia,” Lydia points out. “You know, if he cares about her.”

“Going after the pack to get to the alpha,” Scott says, and hastily adds, “Metaphorically speaking, I mean, I don’t think he’s a werewolf or anything.”

“Do you have the videos with you?” Sheriff Stilinski asks Veronica.

She nods. “They’re on my computer,” she says, and stands up to get her bag. She sets the laptop up on the table and plays through both of the videos while Stiles and his father watch in silence, some of the pack leaning over their shoulders. “The weird thing was that Woody obviously knew who had made it,” Veronica says. “I mean, the way he told my dad to step off after first asking him to investigate.”

“Well,” Sheriff Stilinski says, “maybe Lucky contacted him again. You said he sent the video in the mail. Maybe he sent him something else. We might be able to find out. I happen to have Lucky’s computer in amongst all the things we collected in our investigation. It’s password protected, but . . .”

“Ohhhhh let me let me,” Mac says.

Danny laughs. “Ladies first.”

“Have at it,” Sheriff Stilinski says, passing it to Mac where she’s sitting in the circle. She cracks her knuckles and flips it open.

Isaac, for his part, is still looking at Veronica’s laptop. “Play it again.”

“Which one, the soccer game or the house?” she asks.

“The house,” he says, so she puts it on again.

“There,” Isaac says, as the camera pans over the wall of baseball players. “Why does he care about those photos? It’s weird. I mean, weirder,” he says with a shrug.

Stiles frowns and looks at his father. “You said that Marcos played baseball?” he says, and his father nods. “I think Peter might have at some point, too. Not currently – that’s why it didn’t come up. But when Danny and I were looking through the SHIP website, Peter made some comments about how his parents thought if he’d just kept playing sports, he’d be straight to this day. It sticks out in my mind because he made a lot of rude jokes about sticks and balls.” He turns to Veronica. “What about Lucky, did he play? Do you know?”

“He was the batboy for the Sharks,” Veronica says. “Woody’s team. He used to be . . . well, not friends, but friendly acquaintances, with Logan, before he left for Iraq. So I don’t know if he played, but he was definitely involved with baseball, and with Woody.”

“And I’m in!” Mac says, as Danny peers over her shoulder. “So . . . what do you want me to look for? Should I start with his e-mail?”

“Yeah, I want to know if he’s contacted Woody recently,” Stilinski says. Mac nods and starts typing.

Stiles is staring off into space, frowning. “Derek,” he says suddenly. “You didn’t like Woody. He made you uncomfortable. But you couldn’t really say why.”

Derek nods. “Yeah. More than uncomfortable. He made my fur stand up. I didn’t want him near me, near my pack, or in the den.” It’s obvious that even the memory of the meeting is making Derek’s skin crawl.

“What are you thinking?” Sheriff Stilinski asks his son.

“Veronica, pull up that video again,” Stiles says, and leans over Veronica’s shoulder as she does so. “There. Stop there. That photo. It’s a Little League team. Do you see Marcos and Peter in it?”

“Oh, geez.” Veronica has to screen cap the image and dump it into a graphics program to get a better resolution. “Yeah,” she says, and taps the screen in two places. “There’s Marcos, and there’s Peter.”

“Two kids who were on a little league team coached by a guy who makes Derek uncomfortable, killed because they ‘couldn’t keep a secret’,” Stiles says. “I’m not sure where Lucky fits in yet, but . . .”

“Jesus,” Stilinski says. “You think he molested them.”

Veronica’s head jerks up. “Logan . . . did mention that he was strangely touchy-grabby during his brief internship. I didn’t think a lot of it at the time, I mean, not that I thought he was wrong, but, uh, Logan’s got personal space issues sometimes. His dad sucks, you know? So I thought maybe it was subjective, and it only happened once,” she adds, knowing that if it had happened repeatedly, Logan would have flipped his shit and done something flamboyantly rude.

“He goes near anyone here and I’ll rip his throat out,” Derek states flatly. It isn’t a threat, but a statement of fact.

Stilinski’s face is grim. “This is all circumstantial, though. It’s certainly a theory that would explain a lot, but we still don’t have any proof of any of it.”

“Uh . . . I think we might,” Mac speaks up. “He’s definitely sent Goodman e-mails. He’s sent him a _lot_ of e-mails. Anti-incorporation stuff mostly, but uh, this one has a .wav file attached. You want me to play it?”

“Most likely not,” Stilinski says, “but let’s hear it anyway.” He looks down at her. She seems calm and collected now. Since Veronica has had to leave the circle, Danny has settled on the floor as close to the barrier as he can get, so they’re nearly side by side. She reaches out and presses a few buttons, starting the file. There’s a voice speaking French in the background, the sound of a lesson, and then someone speaks right near the microphone.

“We have to tell people about what Woody did to the three us,” the voice says. “It’s gonna come out someday. A couple of the Sharks had to know about it. They’ll come forward. Things like this don’t stay secret.”

“Damn right,” a second voice says.

“Woody’s a pervert. He’s sick! What he did to us was wrong, we were just kids!”

They listen to the rest of the conversation Peter and Marcos had in complete silence. It’s stilted at moments, with awkward pauses – Stiles assumes that the teacher wandered too close – but the meaning is all too clear. When it’s over, they stay quiet for a long moment, and then Derek stumbles off the sofa and into the nearest bathroom. The door shuts behind him, but all the pack members can hear him throwing up inside.

Stiles hesitates, then decides to give him a few minutes. Veronica, who’s pale as a sheet, says, “Is he . . .?”

“No,” Stiles says roughly. “And don’t ask him. That’s a mystery that you really _don’t_ want to pursue, V. It’s taken care of, and if you poke your nose into it . . .”

Veronica nods and looks down. “I understand.”

“I’ll be back in a few minutes,” Stiles says, and leaves the room. They hear the bathroom door open and shut a few moments later.

“So Peter and Marcos were going to come forward,” Stilinski says, regaining emotional control. “Lucky knew about it because he worked with the Sharks. He must’ve overheard that conversation since he’s at school all the time, and recorded it so he could blackmail Woody. Maybe it was about incorporation, maybe it was about Gia, maybe it was just about Lucky being crazy. What date was that e-mail sent, Mac?”

She taps another button and says, “October first.”

“And two days later, Peter was dead,” Allison says, her hands white-knuckled in her lap. Scott reaches over and lays his hand over Allison’s. He’s not trying to stop what she’s doing, but just offer comfort on top of it.

“How would he have known about Mac?” Danny asks.

“You can never tell who does and doesn’t have ties to the supernatural world,” Sheriff Stilinski says, shaking his head a little. “He’s human, that much we can be sure of, but he’s also someone who’s travelled a great deal. A worldly man. It’s very possible he’s met people in his travels that have given him some experience with the supernatural.”

“But we still have no physical evidence to tie him to the murders,” Veronica says. “No weapon, no prints, no nothing.”

“That’s true,” Stilinski says. “Strong motive isn’t enough, particularly since we’re still only speculating. This recording is provocative, but it’s not explicit. We can’t prove anything.”

Stiles comes in while he’s saying this, and Derek is behind him, but in his wolf form now. Derek always feels safer when he’s being a wolf, particularly around information like this. But he stands in the doorway rigidly, oddly silent.

“So that’s it?” Mac asks. “He just kills three people and there’s nothing we can do?”

“Correct,” Stiles says. “There’s nothing you can do. In your world.” He looks up and his eyes flash crimson. “In _my_ world, however, we play by different rules.”

The entire pack looks over at him, their attention drawn as though he were a lodestone, although none of them seem at all unwilling. “So,” Allison says casually, “we’re going to handle this?”

“I already called your dad,” Stiles says, “to see if there would be any objections from the hunter community. I asked what he would do. He said, and I quote, ‘gut that son of a bitch’.”

Derek shows teeth in clear agreement, in no way the mild-mannered service dog that Mac and Veronica are used to seeing. This is a wolf, something that’s not trying to pretend it isn’t dangerous, although he’s sticking close to Stiles’ side the way he always does.

“Right, then.” Allison’s voice is brisk and professional. “Can we get blueprints or the basic layout of his house? How much and what kind of land surrounds the property? Danny, can you try to find that out?”

Stilinski throws his hands up. “I’m not hearing this. This is not happening.”

The red fades out of Stiles’ eyes and he looks over at his father for a few moments, clearly torn between the two worlds he lives in. Then he says, “Don’t worry, we’ll get a confession for you so you don’t have a triple homicide hanging around unsolved. But other than that . . . I think maybe you should . . . not be here for the next hour or three.”

“Yeah, I’ll go down to the station to keep trying to ‘solve’ Lucky’s murder.” He moves over to Stiles and pulls him into an embrace. He’s not surprised when it’s not returned, Stiles standing tense and rigid in his arms, but at the same time his son doesn’t push him away. It’s fine. Sometimes Stiles simply can’t accept physical comfort. “Remember,” Sheriff Stilinski says quietly, his voice pitched for only Stiles although he’s aware that the rest of the pack can hear him, “you have a good heart.” It’s times like this that he’s sure Stiles needs reminding the most. He pulls away and reaches down to rub at Derek’s ears. “If anyone winds up in the hospital, I’m going to deliver an ass-kicking,” he says, and heads for the door.

After it closes behind him, Veronica speaks up awkwardly. “Can I just . . . make sure I understand what’s happening here? You are actively planning to go to Woody Goodman’s house and murder him?”

“Yes,” Stiles says to her. “Would you like to leave, too? I wouldn’t hold it against you.”

Veronica looks at Mac, thinks about the kanima clawing at the walls of the closet. It’s not that Woody molested children or killed teenagers that bothers her the most. He made her friend into a murderer. “No,” she says. “I’ll stay.”

 

~ ~ ~ ~


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you all had a lovely holiday, and if you don't celebrate it, I hope you have a lovely weekend. Hell, everyone just have a lovely everything. <3

 

“It looks like he had the house built not that long ago, in the last twenty years, so there are plans on file with the city,” Danny offers after a minute with his own computer. “The land seems pretty open. I mean, I’m no expert, thank God, that’s Allison’s department, but I assume you were hoping for something like the preserve, or near a body of water or something?”

“Yeah,” Allison says, with what seems like a pout.

Stiles shakes his head. “Woody Goodman is going to confess to the murders and ‘disappear’. We’ll take him out of town and dispose of his body somewhere else. I don’t want to kill him in the house and create a crime scene, or put a body in his car that a cadaver dog will smell when they find where he ‘ditched it’. We’ll have him write a confession and then empty his bank account. Danny, that’s your job. Transfer that money to Switzerland or some shit like that. What worries me is cameras. We’ll have to do a thorough search for them.” His hand rests on the top of Derek’s head for a moment. “Isaac, Boyd, Danny, you stay here. I want someone to stay with Mac in case . . . just in case. The rest of you are with me.”

Allison stands. “I’ll go put a bag together. You want registered or unregistered weapons?”

“Unless you’ve got some that are registered to Woody Goodman, let’s go with the latter,” Stiles says. The others are moving now too, to change clothes, get their shoes, make whatever preparations they feel are necessary. “Mac, you just sit tight, okay? I’m not sure what will happen when the puppet master is gone. If you feel strange at all, I want you to focus on Veronica. Veronica, you stay with her, don’t leave her side for a minute. Because if the kanima _has_ to have a master, best if it’s you.”

“Me?” Veronica blurts out, obviously startled. “I’m not . . .” Then she looks at Mac and thinks about all the assholes in this town that could gain power over her. “Okay.”

Allison comes down a few moments later, still dressed in a cute skirt and top, but now it’s all dark earth tones and she’s got dark tights on underneath the skirt. She’s carrying a duffel bag, which she opens, and starts efficiently doling out thin leather gloves to everyone. Stiles is also handed a gun and a holster, which he puts on before shrugging into his leather jacket. She takes a moment to strap one of her own to her thigh, underneath her skirt. After that, she zips up the bag and slings it over her shoulder. “Ready whenever you are,” she says.

“Okay, let’s go,” Stiles says, and the group of them turn and head out the door, Derek trotting along at his heels, vest and leash nowhere in sight.

They’ve been gone almost a full minute before Mac finally speaks. “Jesus fuckin’ Christ, you didn’t tell me that they were the God damned A-team.”

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

Woody’s car is in the driveway – easily recognizable from the vanity plate – so the pack knows that he’s home. Only the one car is there, and there are only a few lights on inside. Stiles and Allison wait in the car while Scott, Lydia, and Erica go to scout things out. Derek waits with Stiles as well, not wanting to stray too far from his side.

If there are cameras, all they’ll see is some dark, blurry shapes that could easily be someone’s dog that’s gotten loose. Nobody’s face will be on film. But apparently they’ve worried for nothing. The house has a high-tech security system, but when the wolves get back, they report that they didn’t see any cameras. There’s the low noise of a television somewhere in the house – a baseball game, of course – but nothing else. Nobody seems to be home. Scott went up on the roof to listen for noise on the second floor, but there was nothing.

“Okay,” Stiles says. “Allison, Derek, Scott, you’re with me. Erica, Lydia, you stay out here. One in the back, one in the front. Call me if you hear anyone coming or if you think anything’s amiss. On the off chance that Goodman comes out and tries to leave, stop him. No blood.”

Everyone nods, and Stiles heads up to the front door and rings the bell. The easiest outcome here is if Goodman answers the door, then can get him by the arms and simply propel him to his car. He won’t be able to fight much against werewolves. If he’s armed, things become more complicated. Stiles is guessing he won’t be, but the master of the kanima is aware that someone is on to them. Goodman is obviously a brutal man who isn’t afraid to commit violence to further his ends. But against his pack, he knows that it would take a lot more than one asshole to get away.

But there’s no answer to the doorbell. Stiles rings it twice to be sure. Either Goodman knows who’s there and why, or he’s not answering for other reasons. Stiles tries the door, but it’s locked. “Over the wall,” he decides, and they head for the back of the property. It’s too high to climb, an excellent deterrent for thieves, but Scott boosts him over, then Allison, and then they’re in the backyard. Derek shifts into his partial form to climb over, but changes back to full wolf as soon as he’s inside the yard.

It takes a minute to locate a door that isn’t locked, but they do. It’s a sliding glass door, and they slip into the house. None of them speak now that they’re inside. They can hear the low noise of the television. Stiles’ entire body feels taut with the tension, a twist of apprehension in his stomach, but he’s not feeling much in the way of emotions. Monsters come in many shapes and sizes, and killing monsters is something he does.

The room with the television is empty. There’s a half-full bottle of beer beside it, and the remote is on the coffee table. Stiles gestures to the bathroom, and Scott checks it out. Empty.

Goodman can’t have gone far, but it’s all too possible that he’s decided to hole up somewhere with a gun and take out the intruders. Scott goes first into every room while Allison covers him with her bow. Derek brings up the rear, close on Stiles’ heels. It’s very unlikely that Goodman has enough supernatural connections or expertise to have a weapon that would actually hurt a werewolf. They move slowly from room to room. Scott leads them down a narrow hallway and then stops abruptly. “Jesus,” he says, louder than he intends, and the words echo in the empty house.

“What is it?” Stiles asks, and then Scott moves aside so he can see.

The room is set up like a living room or parlor, large and open, with several couches and a few tables. There’s a loft that overlooks it, making the room seem a little larger than it is. The loft has a railing that separates it from the rest of the room. Hanging from that railing is Woody Goodman. There’s a rope fastened around his neck and then to the railing.

“Christ on a Cracker Jack,” Stiles blurts out. He jogs forward and drags over a chair, climbs up and presses his hand against Goodman’s neck. It’s damp, almost slimy, but there’s no pulse to be felt. “Dead as a doornail, in addition to being sweaty and gross,” he says, grimacing and wiping his hand off on the back of his neck. “But still warm. Think he knew we were coming?”

“I think so.” Allison is leaning over the table. There are a few sheets of paper there. She carefully lifts them up. “Written confession. To killing all three. Nothing about the molestation. Just that he’s been suffering from ‘bouts of rage’ and has committed ‘unforgivable sins’.”

“What happened with the kanima must have freaked him out,” Scott says.

“I can keep a secret better than anyone,” Stiles murmurs. He’s staring at Goodman’s body as he gets down from the chair, his dismount a little less graceful than usual. It’s not pretty. And he’s starting to feel kind of weird. Stiff. “Jesus. We’d better get out of here, then we can call my dad.” He takes a step forward, or tries to, but his legs don’t want to work properly, and he pitches forward.

Scott makes a spectacular dive for him that ends in them in an uncomfortable sprawl on the floor, but Scott is on the bottom with one arm wrapped around Stiles, saving Stiles’ face from meeting the floor although Scott’s elbow does hit with a crack. “Ow, ow, owwwwww, funny bone.”

“Sorry, dude, I – ” Stiles is going to finish that sentence with something pithy like ‘I guess seeing a dead child molester freaked me out a little’, presuming that his legs had just gone out from underneath him, but something else is wrong. He’s not getting up. He’s _trying_ to get up, he’s sending very firm instructions to his arms and legs _about_ getting him up, but it’s just not happening. Nothing is happening. “Oh crap.”

“What? Are you hurt?” Scott asks, as Derek slinks over with a low whine.

“No. I can’t move.” Stiles’ mind races. “Venom! He’s not sweaty. It’s kanima venom. I wiped it onto the back of my neck. God damned nervous gestures.”

Allison grabs Derek as he starts to nose at Stiles’ neck to stop him from getting too close. He growls, but it’s a noise to show displeasure, and isn’t actually directed at her. “Just hang on,” she tells him, and he does stop moving forward. “It didn’t last that long when it just got on my hand,” she says, yanking things out of her duffel bag. “But I dipped my hand in a bucket of bleach right away. So let’s try that. Close your eyes.” Without warning, she drops a rag over Stiles’ face and sprays the back and sides of his neck and even up into his hair with the bleach she keeps in a spray bottle along with her clean-up supplies.

“I think I saw a porno like this once,” Stiles says into the rag.

Allison takes it off his face. “Did it also involve your ‘work of art’?” she asks, carefully mopping up the venom before moving on to his hand.

“You know it,” Stiles says. Since he’s lying there immobile while Allison cleans him up, he says, “Shit. This is weird. Why is there kanima venom here? I suppose it’s a very unlikely chance, but someone call home and make sure Mac hasn’t left the circle.”

“Sure.” Scott fishes his phone out from where he’s still laying on the floor with Stiles and pulls up his phone book. Boyd is listed first, since it’s alphabetical, so he hits send.  “Hey, it’s me,” he says. “Just checking in. Everything cool over there?”

“Yeah, we’ve turned off the ponies and found some real television to watch,” Boyd says. “How are things on your end?”

“Uh . . . complicated,” Scott says. “We’re all okay, but it may take a bit to figure things out.”

Boyd doesn’t question. “Okay. Keep us posted.”

Scott hangs up. “They’re cool.”

“There can’t be two kanimas,” Stiles says. “No way.”

Scott maneuvers around Stiles and sits them both up, Derek creeping closer to lay beside Stiles’ legs. “No, can’t be,” he agrees. “And he’s only been dead a little while. So . . .”

“So the puppet master is still out there,” Allison says. “We forced his hand. He knew we had the kanima, and suspected we might make the connection back to Goodman, so he came here to kill him personally. He must’ve taken some of the venom from the kanima and kept it for himself, just in case he needed it.”

“Paralyzed him and just strung him up,” Stiles says. “Faked a confession and suicide. That’s brilliant. Why didn’t I think of that?” There’s a pause. “I’m going to Hell, aren’t I.”

“Eh,” Allison says with a shrug. “Maybe only to the antechambers. We can share a bench. So what now? Just leave him? If we don’t clean up the venom, what happened to you could happen to other people.”

“Yeah, wipe him down real quick,” Stiles says, and grimaces. “Sorry. Then we’ll get out of here.” He tries to move his hands, and his fingers twitch a little. “You’re going to have to carry me. Sorry.”

Scott shrugs. “What’s a piggy-back ride between friends.”

“I’m just using some water,” Allison says, as she wets down a different rag and climbing onto the same chair that Stiles used. “It would be weird if he took a bleach bath before offing himself.”

“Yeah. Piggy-back ain’t gonna work, Scott. I’ve got to be able to _grip_ for that, and I can’t.” Stiles huffs out a breath. “They probably wouldn’t notice the bleach. It’s a pretty open and shut case. My dad might do some basic investigation if Goodman’s wife is adamant that he never would have killed himself, but . . . there’s no indication otherwise, and a hanging is pretty hard to fake. You know, without paralytic venom. The suicide note is typewritten, and I’m sure whoever did it typed it up here, on Goodman’s own computer. Without any other fingerprints or evidence that anyone else was here . . . no forced entry . . . it’s pretty cut and dry. But we’d better get going before someone in the family comes home and finds us here.”

“You know what, I’m up here, so water it is,” Allison says. “There’s only so much I’m going to scrub the neck of a dead pervert.”

“Princess carry it is, then,” Scott says, getting to his feet.

Stiles is staring at Goodman’s body as Allison climbs down from her chair. “Jesus,” he says. “Pervert yes, but murderer . . .” He thinks he would be shaking from reaction if his nerves were still working. “We nearly killed the wrong fucking guy.”

Derek looks like he might be thinking about feeling guilty, but doesn’t. Allison looks away from Goodman’s body and swallows. “Lesson learned,” she says briskly. “We gather more evidence next time.”

“It was such a good theory,” Stiles says. “Now we’re back at square one.” He brightens a little as Scott scoops him up and says, “Although I guess if we’re gonna kill a guy for the wrong reason, a child molester is a good guy to pick.”

Allison dusts her footprints off the chair, puts it back where it goes, and grabs her bag. “Pretty sure Derek shares your opinion.”

Stiles reaches out to scratch behind Derek’s ears. His arm flops uselessly at his side. “God, this sucks, let’s get out of here,” he says. Scott nods and they head for the back door. “Not one of my best days,” Stiles ruminates, as Scott carries him across the yard. “Not my worst,” he adds. “Hell, not even in my bottom ten. But still. Not my best day.”

As they round the house, Erica is standing by the Jeep, knotting her hands together. “You were in there forever, what the hell took so long? And – why is Scott carrying you?”

“Someone beat us to the punch,” Stiles says. “And I dipped my hand in kanima venom. Get in the car, I’ll explain on the way.”

Erica scrambles into the back and helps Scott settle Stiles snugly in between them. Allison throws her bag into the trunk and then gets into the front passenger seat as Lydia gets behind the wheel. They’re in her car, as Stiles had deemed the Jeep too distinctive a vehicle to take to a possible crime scene. Derek squirms his way into the back and spreads out across Stiles’ lap. Stiles’ head lolls onto Erica’s shoulder. “Someone dial my dad and hold the phone up to my ear,” he says with a sigh. Erica takes the phone out of his pocket and does so. “Hey, Dad, it’s me,” Stiles says, and launches right into it. “I know this is going to sound suspicious, but it _appears_ that Woody Goodman committed suicide about fifteen minutes ago.”

“Why are you stressing that word? If . . . no, just answer my question,” Stilinski says. He stops himself from asking or saying all the things he wants to, because people can hear his half of the situation.

“Goodman wasn’t guilty. Someone beat us here. There was kanima venom on his neck.” Stiles neglects mentioning how he found this out. “We’re back to square one. In the meantime, I’m anonymously calling to report the body to the sheriff.”

There’s a sigh from the other end of the phone. “Would you like to identify yourself, sir?” he asks, because he has to ask and Stiles has to refuse, just to make sure everyone’s asses are covered.

“Nope, I’m good, see you at the house later,” Stiles says, and Erica takes the phone and punches the end button. “Well, this has been a mildly humiliating turn of events.”

“Nah, you’re doing way better than Derek,” Erica says. “We had to peel him out of his wet clothes, dry him off, and then redress him,” she adds brightly, and Derek growls and play snaps at her.

“Yeah, but Derek actually got injured. He didn’t just wipe his hand through poison and then not notice.”

“Stiles, I wiped my hand through the same poison and didn’t notice,” Allison points out. “The two differences being that I noticed immediately because it was highly concentrated and my fingers stopped working right away, and I was lucky enough to have a bucket of bleach _right there_ to put my hand in.”

Stiles thinks about this, then sticks his tongue out at her. “Why is it that you have to be right all the time?”

“Because I’m amazing.” She gives him a bright smile. “Just ask Scott if you don’t believe me.”

“No thanks,” Stiles says. “I still vividly remembered the days when I couldn’t him to shut up about how amazing you were. No plans on reliving them. And just so you know, I would be applying a joking elbow to your ribs, you know, if I could.”

“Noted,” Scott says. “I want you to know that bro code prevents me from retaliating with the ammunition that fits the situation.” His tone suggests that Stiles had better appreciate the sacrifice he’s making.

Stiles gives a little grimace. Given that Scott listened to him talk about how amazing Lydia was for _years_ , he’s got ammunition to spare. “Yeah, yeah,” he says, and focuses on trying to wiggle his toes. He can feel his limbs again, that unpleasant tingly sensation of when they’ve gone to sleep. By the time they reach the house, he can move again, although not in any sort of coordinated way. Scott helps him to his feet and gets Stiles’ arm over his shoulders, so at least he won’t have to be carried, and they head inside.

The wolves who stayed behind look up, their gazes fixed on Stiles, then Isaac gets up, leaving the sofa free for Scott to settle Stiles on it. “This isn’t how a completely successful plan looks,” Isaac says.

Lydia gives him a scathing look, although it’s half directed at Stiles himself. Scott huffs out a laugh, and Derek just heaves a sigh and then jumps up onto the sofa and lies down, partially in Stiles’ lap.

“Okay,” Isaac corrects, “some of his successful plans have looked this bad or worse, but this one wasn’t supposed to.”

“Yeah, well, at least part of our goal has been accomplished,” Stiles says, “in that Woody Goodman is dead. The problem is that we didn’t do it.”

“Uh huh.” Isaac’s eyebrows wrinkle together. He sits down on the floor right by Stiles’ legs and rests his elbow on the cushion by Stiles’ knee. “That’s not good, is it.”

“Pretty much not good,” Stiles says. “To all outward appearances, he confessed to the murders – nothing about the molestation – and then killed himself out of remorse. But there was kanima venom on him – that’s why I can’t move, because I got it on me when I was checking his pulse. So. Someone beat us to the punch. Which means that Goodman wasn’t the one controlling the kanima. Which means we’re back to square one.”

Veronica rubs her hands over her face and looks at the wall of evidence that Sheriff Stilinski had left behind. “So what do we do?”

“Right now?” Stiles sighs. “I’m inclined to say nothing. It’s late. It’s been one hell of a day for all of us. My personal preference would be to put on a movie and tackle it in the morning, when we’re fresh. Mac, you might want to let your parents you’re staying here tonight.”

Mac nods and pulls out her phone, almost numb, and then pauses. “Wait. How could he have the paralytic poison, which would be a great name for a band by the way, on him, when I’ve been here?”

“That’s actually not that hard,” Allison says with a shrug. “Whoever’s been pulling your puppet strings can probably get you to change on command, or if nothing else, knows where the kanima will be. It leaves a trail from its claws. I was able to get a jar of it at the school today, no problem. Someone who was giving the orders will have no trouble.”

“So . . . he milks me like a cow. A paralytic, venomous cow. Good to know.” Mac shakes her head a little and starts texting her mother.

“So he paralyzed Goodman, put a rope around his neck, and shoved him off his balcony,” Stiles says, and shakes his head. “That’s cold. I don’t think even I could kill someone like that, and I’m the coldest person I know.”

“No, you’re not,” Allison informs him comfortably from where she’s set about checking her weapons on the coffee table so she can put them away. “My mom’s colder. I love her, but she’s stone cold. And some of the alpha pack might be, too.”

“Mikael,” Erica adds. “That dude was hardcore.”

“Are we counting evil people?” Boyd asks. “Because we could throw Sebastian Stone on the list.”

“Okay, okay, I get it,” Stiles says, lifting his hands in surrender. “I’m not the coldest person I know.” He looks at Mac and Veronica and says, “They don’t let me have angst very often.”

Mac shoulder-bumps Veronica. “Maybe you should ask to borrow them.”

“Hey, I’ve got Logan,” Veronica says. “Mr. Mature is good for cheering me up.”

Mac smirks at her, and then her phone rings. She looks down at it. “Oh! It’s Cassidy.” Her smile fades a little and she says, “I can, uh, I can still have a boyfriend, right? I mean . . . I don’t have to tell him I’m . . . some sort of weird lizard monster?”

“I wouldn’t recommend it, no,” Stiles says dryly.

“Just what I wanted to hear,” Mac says, before answering his call. “Hey . . . no, I’m just hanging out with Danny and Veronica. Really? Okay . . . yeah, okay! That sounds great. No, we’re just doing computer stuff, it’d be boring for you . . . okay, I’ll talk to you later. Bye.” She hangs up and says to Veronica, “He wants to take me out next Friday night. Somewhere ‘romantic’, he says.”

“Ooooh, stepping up the game,” Veronica says. “Very nice. And unlike everyone else in the family, you can trust that he actually knows what the word ‘romantic’ means.” They’re clearly having a serious girl moment.

“Ah, young love,” Stiles says philosophically. “That gives us, what, an entire week to figure out how to make sure you don’t transform into a lizard while you’re on your date.”

“We’ve worked with worse deadlines,” Scott says. “Hell, for us, that’s pretty freakin’ generous.”

Derek yawns. Stiles is slowly slumping over so he’s practically flopped in Lydia’s lap. He could try to right himself, but he doesn’t really care that much. “Okay, okay, enough talk. Someone go find disc one of Firefly.” To Veronica, he says, “It’s my comfort food. If food were something to be watched instead of eaten.”

“I always go for ice cream, chick music, and Lord of the Rings,” Veronica says. “There’s just something about the unwashed King of Men.” She curls up to lean on the side of Mac’s bean bag chair.

Allison starts packing up the weapons. “Let me put these away. Should I start hauling blankets and stuff down?”

“Yeah, sure, let’s make it a party,” Stiles says.

“We’ll help out,” Boyd says, getting to his feet.

“I’ll make the popcorn,” Lydia says. Erica gives her a high five and follows Boyd and Allison up the stairs. A few minutes later, the three of them come down trailing rolls of egg crates and blankets, with pillows gripped by the corners. Allison has changed into her pajamas and stuffed a few extra sets into pillow cases for Mac and Veronica.

“So . . . you guys do this often?” Veronica asks, watching the parade.

“As often as we can without our parents freaking out,” Boyd says, as he moves the coffee tablet out of the way so Scott can unroll an egg crate where it used to be. “And that’s most of the time.”

“Speaking of parents,” Scott says, glancing up, “don’t forget we’re due back in Beacon Hills next weekend.”

“Oh, right,” Stiles says. “Well, I guess we can all use the break. I might stay here, though, if we don’t have it sorted out by then.”

“Maybe even if we do,” Scott says. “I’m not a fan of splitting up the pack, but it might be a good idea.”

“What for?” Stiles asks, tilting his head to look at Scott.

“Well, if we do get everything sorted out, if we’re lucky, then Mac will be a ‘wolf and not a kanima,” Scott says, helping Boyd spread the blankets as Erica and Isaac toss pillows and cushions around.

“Oh, I guess that’s right,” Stiles says. “Someone ought to stick around to help you through the transition.”

“And a new wolf will want an alpha,” Lydia says, coming in with the popcorn, “even if it isn’t _their_ alpha.”

“Is my alpha supposed to be the asshole who bit me?” Mac asks.

“Uh . . . technically, yes, but you don’t have to stay with the alpha who turned you,” Stiles says, waving a hand. “It’s not unusual for wolves to change packs. We’re kind of unusual in how tightly bound we are, which probably has something to do with our recruitment methods. Oh, but that reminds me.” He flexes his hands and finds them in working order. “Gotta call Chris.”

Erica pulls out his phone from where she had tucked it into her own pocket after his call to his father and tosses it to him. “Think fast.”

Stiles grabs it out of the air but can’t quite close his hand around it, and it falls to the ground. He groans a little but reaches down to get it. Veronica listens to his half of the conversation in interest. “Hey, Chris, it’s me again . . . no, I’ve got a present for you! . . . no, it’s even the kind of present you like, I swear. Don’t be like that; you know I always bring you the best violence. How do you feel about tracking down a rogue alpha . . .? Last known location was Shasta Lake in August. Nope. Turning teenaged girls without consent . . . yeah, no, have a blast. I don’t give a shit what Justin thinks. What’s he going to do, cry about it? Okey dokey. Keep me posted.” He taps the screen and then tosses the phone aside. “Giddy as a schoolboy.”

“The day my dad is as giddy as a schoolboy is the day I assume someone slipped something into his food,” Allison says. “Or the day Henry and Rose do something wonderful like fall into another tiger pit. Or an active volcano. Or get murdered by pirates.”

“Murdered by pirates is good!” three pack members say in unison, along with Mac.

Stiles just gives a snort of laughter. “Well, for your dad, he was giddy. He actually thanked me, which . . . has never happened before, I don’t think.” To Veronica and Mac, he says, “Chris Argent and I have a complicated relationship. On the one hand, he thinks I’m a snot-nosed brat. On the other hand, I _am_ a snot-nosed brat, but I’m also the alpha of the territory he lives in, which means he has to pay me some respect regardless.”

“It doesn’t help that he’s torn between wanting me to be happy and wanting to strangle Stiles and Scott because I actually joined a pack,” Allison says, and shrugs. “Oops.”

“No . . . I think his problem really is more that I’m dating you,” Scott says. “And he owns a massive collection of guns.”

“Just when I think my life is interesting,” Veronica remarks.

“I know, right?” Mac says. “You think you’ve got all this drama with your swapped at birth stories and your boyfriend who really has no idea what to do with a girlfriend and then suddenly, bam! The new kid just comes in with werewolves and one-ups you for eternity.”

“Swapped at birth is pretty good,” Boyd says. “Soap opera material, right there.”

“We all have our crosses to bear,” Erica says, pulling her shirt off.

Veronica chokes a little.

“Erica, we have _company_ ,” Stiles says. “I know that none of you are modest, but for crying out loud, a little _warning_ before you start throwing your clothes off would be nice.”

“Right,” Erica says. “I’m going to take the rest of my clothes off!” she announces, and then strips. Once naked, she smirks at Stiles and says, “Better?” before shifting to her wolf form.

“So, so much better,” Stiles says under his breath. Veronica and Mac are just trying to keep their eyes averted. “Yeah, sorry about her. I mean, they shift back and forth all the time, so modesty just . . . isn’t a thing around here. So, uh, sorry if you see more naked teenagers than you are typically used to seeing tonight.”

Mac blinks a few times as Boyd pulls his shirt over his head. “In some cases, not a hardship,” she says, and then her face turns pink, hands coming up to cover it. “Oh God, I said that out loud, didn’t I.”

“Nothing we’re not used to,” Boyd says, and starts shooing the others out of the room so they can change without traumatizing anyone. Scott stays, because he’ll stay in human form, but the rest of them go. Veronica and Mac can’t help but stare helplessly as the group of wolves come back in a few minutes later.

Seeing the looks on their faces, Stiles says, “It can take some time to learn them apart. I mean, we can tell, but . . . Erica’s the blondish one and Lydia’s the reddish one, so they’re easy. Derek you know, of course,” he says, gesturing to the black wolf that he’s comfortably slumped against. The other three wolves are all shades of brown. “The others are easier to tell apart by their size. Boyd’s the biggest, Danny’s the longest, and Isaac’s the lankiest. And floofiest. Scott’s about the same color when he shifts, but he’s more compact than the others.”

Isaac flicks an ear at Stiles along with a little growl at the ‘floofiest’ comment, but then he curls up against Stiles’ leg so his irritation can’t be that serious. The girls are just staring. It takes Veronica a moment to recover from suddenly being in a room full of wolves. “Why did they all change? Er, why did you change?” she amends. Her eyes skip back and forth uncertainly between the wolves who can’t speak, but she knows to be intelligent, and Stiles, who she can still carry on a conversation with.

“Honestly? Right now, the primary reason is space,” Stiles says. “And that’s part of why they often sleep as wolves. Wolves are pack animals, they’re tactile creatures. They like to be close and in contact with each other.” His hands stir absently over Derek’s fur as he speaks. “And we won’t all fit in here and be able to see the television if we try to fit eleven human bodies.”

It is space-saving, Veronica notes. If one wolf sprawls out, another uses him or her as a pillow and a third curls up in the space that’s left. Allison and Scott aren’t excluded, despite their human forms. Mac watches this somewhat wistfully. “If I become a werewolf, do I get to join in the cuddle fest?”

“Of course,” Stiles says. “Hey, I’d let you join right now if we could be sure it would be safe. Sorry.”

“No, it’s cool,” Mac says. “Sleepovers and paralytic puppet lizards are a bad mix.”

 

~ ~ ~ ~


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have to admit, as much as I primarily wrote this for Stiles and Veronica snark, Logan in this chapter might be my favorite part of the entire fic. =D

Veronica’s not sure what wakes her up, but since Lilly’s death, she hasn’t been the soundest sleeper. She flails around in the darkness, trying to figure out where she is. Her hand collides with someone soft and furry, and she opens one eye and freezes as memory comes back. The room is dimly lit by a small lamp in one corner. Everyone else is asleep. She can see Mac curled up on the bean bag in her circle. Scott and Allison are sprawled out together on the sofa. Those are the only humans she sees. Everyone else is wolves, curled up and nestled together in piles.

She doesn’t see Stiles anywhere. After shifting for a minute, she decides to get up and find out what time it is, and maybe get a drink. The oven in the kitchen displays the time, and it’s so late it’s getting early, past four in the morning. There’s a pitcher of tea sitting on the counter, so she pours herself a glass and goes looking for Stiles.

He’s in one of the bedrooms, which has been set up more as a study/library, with a couple plush chairs but no bed. He’s moved the murder board up to the room, and has papers spread all over the desk. “Hey,” Veronica says quietly. “I thought we were gonna let it sit until morning.”

“Couldn’t sleep,” Stiles says, then with a wry smile, “actually, didn’t try. I have this tendency to have screaming nightmares, so I prefer not to sleep when I have houseguests. A couple Adderall, some black coffee, and I could work all night. Care to join me?”

Veronica sits down and studies the board. “I can’t believe your dad brought all this home for you to look at.”

Stiles shrugs. “My dad is all about getting shit done.”

“Fair enough,” Veronica says. “So where are we at?”

“Well, the fourth victim, if we can call Woody that, throws all our previous theories into sudden disarray,” Stiles says, “but we still know that whoever is controlling the kanima is doing it to keep a secret. Consider Woody’s suicide note. He confesses to killing the three previous victims, but there’s nothing in there about the molestation. Why not? Because that’s the secret. Someone doesn’t want anyone else to know that Woody is a child molester.”

“Okay,” Veronica says, “but since that person isn’t Woody, then who?”

“Suspect number one,” Stiles says, spinning around in his chair, “is Mrs. Goodman. She’d have good reason not to want anyone to know her husband touches little boys. Unfortunately, Mrs. Goodman was at a charity auction this evening, according to my dad, and about seventy people saw her there. So she’s out. Then we have his kids.”

“No way,” Veronica says. “Gia’s nice, but she’s got the intellectual depth of a radish.”

“I drew similar conclusions,” Stiles says, rubbing his hands over his hair. “So then there’s incorporation.”

Veronica nods slowly. “Woody’s pioneered the movement. If someone found out he was a child molester, his image would be ruined. And around here . . .”

“Image is everything,” Stiles says with a nod. “It would ruin him _and_ everything he’s worked for, including all the incorporation stuff. So, to that end, I’ve compiled a list of people who have heartily endorsed incorporation or who stand to benefit a lot by it. Unfortunately, that list comprises just about every rich dude in Neptune, and if I start knocking on doors and asking for alibis . . .”

“Yeah, not a great idea in this town,” Veronica agrees, wincing. “But anyway, how would any of them have _known_ that Woody was a child molester?” She frowns, pinching her lower lip. “Maybe we could narrow it down to anyone who had sons about the right age. If one of them was a victim . . .”

“They could have talked their kid into not saying anything about it,” Stiles says. “Good thought.” He turns around in his computer and starts typing again.

Veronica peers over his shoulder to see how he’s searching and says, “Oh, I can do that quicker through the PI site.”

“Nice,” Stiles says. “I’ve gotta get a username for that.” He spins around in his chair and says, “The other possibility is that someone found out Woody was being threatened, and put the pieces together. But there were only a few people who knew.”

“Like my dad and Logan?” Veronica says. Stiles gives a little nod. “Makes sense in theory, and I promise I’m not being touchy, but Woody didn’t get the video from Lucky until _after_ Peter had been murdered.”

“So there goes that,” Stiles says, “not that I considered either of them really strong suspects anyway. I can’t see either of them covering for Woody. Your dad is too much of a lawman, and hell, if Logan had found out that Woody molests kids, he would’ve been on the six o’clock news, shouting from the rooftops about it.”

Veronica smiles despite herself. “That is _so_ true,” she says.

“The other possibility is _anti_ -incorporation people,” Stiles says. “I mean, if the plan was to frame Woody for the murders from the beginning, and ruin the plan that way.”

“Okay,” Veronica says, “so now that we’ve narrowed our suspect pool down to every citizen of Neptune . . .”

“Yep,” Stiles says, “but now that you’re in here, I’ve had a second wind. Let’s take it from the top.”

So they do. They go over every detail from the first murder onward. Stiles has all the police reports, statements from the family, alibis for possible suspects. He’s also slowly but surely been gathering information about the kanima from his various sources. Veronica knows more about the victims. They go through each piece of data painstakingly, but after nearly an hour, are no closer to finding a clue than at the beginning.

“Maybe someone else heard Peter and Marcos talking,” Veronica says, swallowing a yawn. “If it was at school. Why don’t you play that recording again and we’ll see if we can hear anyone or anything useful in the background.”

“Sure.” Stiles is still relatively perky, and has been working on two computers at once – one with the case information and one with supernatural information. He puts it on and gives it half a listen as he continues to research on the kanima.

“Does it sound to you like there are weird pauses?” Veronica asks.

Stiles glances over. “Play it again?”

Veronica puts it back at the beginning and they both listen carefully. “It does,” she says. “It definitely does. Like some of it has been edited out.”

“Why the hell . . .” Stiles says, his forehead wrinkled.

“Marcos said ‘the three of us’,” Veronica says. “So there was obviously another victim. Maybe he was there with them when they had the conversation. And he didn’t want to come forward.”

Stiles nods slowly. “He didn’t want anyone to know.”

“He can keep a secret better than anyone,” Veronica says. “So he killed Peter and Marcos to keep them from coming forward. And then he found out that Lucky had that recording, was blackmailing Woody, so he had to kill Lucky, too.”

“Pull up that image of the picture that Lucky focused on in his video,” Stiles says, leaning over her shoulder.

Veronica alt+tabs to another program and pulls up the still. The quality isn’t great, the photo is a little grainy, but the faces are fairly easy to make out. Stiles does a quick count of them and sees fifteen. With Peter and Marcos dead, that leaves them thirteen suspects. “Okay,” he says, “now we just have to figure out who they are.”

“That’s presuming that the third kid was on the same team,” Veronica points out.

“Well, if he knew Peter and Marcos, odds are good that he was,” Stiles says. “And it least gives us a place to start. If we don’t turn up any good leads, we can always expand to the year before and after. There must be old team rosters somewhere. Hell, let’s be honest. If Woody molested three boys, he probably molested more than that. Just because this kid wasn’t on the recording doesn’t automatically make him guilty.”

Veronica nods and stifles a yawn. “Okay,” she says. She squints at the somewhat grainy photograph and begins writing down the names of the boys she can identify. She’s not sure about all of them. Logan might be able to help. If not, she can hopefully find a roster somewhere. Stiles goes back to the online bestiary he’s been perusing.

The sun is just starting to rise when they hear the garage door open. Stiles glances up and fiddles with his pen, but doesn’t actually get to his feet. He knows his dad will come straight upstairs. He does mere moments later, uniform shirt already unbuttoned to reveal the white T-shirt underneath, dark circles under his eyes. “How bad was it?” Stiles asks.

“Well,” Sheriff Stilinski says, “Mrs. Goodman was strangely accepting of the idea that her husband might kill three people and then kill himself. I’d say she was in shock, but she didn’t really seem like it. The daughter was hysterical, and the son didn’t really seem to be all the way there. I encouraged mom to get both kids in therapy. Hopefully if the boy was being abused, he’ll be able to get the help he needs that way.”

“Good,” Stiles says. “So we don’t have to worry about anybody pushing for answers?”

Stilinski shakes his head. “Official verdict is suicide,” he says. “Any luck on your end?”

“Some hypotheticals but no real leads yet,” Stiles says. “We know there was a third boy involved, but we haven’t really ruled out anything yet.”

“Well, the good news is that the murders are probably over at this point,” Stilinski says.

“How do you figure?” Stiles asks.

“From the way he framed Goodman,” Stilinski says. “If you’re going to commit a bunch of murders and frame someone else for it, why set up the frame before you’re done? If he kills anyone else now, he’d have to find someone else to pin it on. No, Woody was his last victim on purpose. He had it planned going in that he was going to get everyone out of the way that he needed to, and then leave Woody with the blame.”

Stiles relaxes a little. “I hope you’re right,” he says.

“It wasn’t enough for him to kill Woody,” Veronica says. “He had to destroy his reputation, too.”

“We were talking about incorporation opponents,” Stiles adds.

“Oh, Lord,” Stilinski says. “It’s way too late, or early, to get into that political horseshit.” He yawns. “I’m going to get some sleep.” He gives his son a narrow-eyed look and adds, “You should too.”

“In a bit,” Stiles says, almost absently, as he turns back to their list of suspects.

Stilinski sighs and tousles his son’s hair. “Don’t wake me unless the house is burning down,” he says, and leaves the room.

By the time the sun is up all the way and they can hear people stirring downstairs, they’ve made a thorough suspect list divided into three categories: pro-incorporation, anti-incorporation, and other teenagers around Peter and Marcos’ age who played on Woody’s Little League team. Special consideration will be given to the adults who had kids the same age, or any personal connection to Woody that might have enabled them to stumble upon his pedophilia.

“Gonna be a looooong day,” Veronica says, yawning and stretching. She thinks she fell asleep around eleven, so that’s what, a little over five hours of sleep? She can manage that. “Mind if I use your shower?”

“Oh, no problem,” Stiles says. “Let me get a towel for you. One of the girls can loan you some clothes.”

Veronica thanks him and heads into the bathroom. He gives her a towel and she turns the hot water on. It soothes out the worst of the aches from a long night, and she emerges feeling somewhat refreshed, even if she didn’t come to any stunning conclusions. She towels her hair mostly dry and finds that someone has left some clothes on the counter for her. She hadn’t even heard anyone come in. It should freak her out, but it doesn’t. She gets dressed and heads downstairs.

It’s late enough now that some of the pack are up, although most of them are still in their wolf forms. Someone has turned on Saturday morning cartoons. Mac is still asleep, curled up on her bean bag chairs. They’ve kept the volume on the television low. She doesn’t see Stiles, but she smells coffee, so she heads into the kitchen.

He’s standing at the counter with a mixing bowl in front of him and a spatula in one hand, but the side of his face is leaning against the refrigerator and his eyes are closed. “Stiles?” Veronica says cautiously, and he jolts, nearly tripping over his own feet as he stumbles backwards. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to . . . wake you?”

“I wasn’t asleep,” Stiles says automatically, redirecting his attention to the bowl of batter in front of him. He looks like crap, Veronica notes, pale and worn thin, with dark circles under his eyes. “Just making breakfast. You want some coffee?”

“Yeah,” she says, and she goes for a mug, still frowning a little. She’s thinking that maybe she should say something when Derek comes in, wearing only a pair of boxer shorts. She flushes pink and tries not to stare. Scott is behind him, thankfully fully dressed.

“You need to go to bed,” Derek says, in a tone of voice that leaves no room for argument.

Stiles argues anyway. “No, I’m fine.”

“You didn’t sleep last night and you barely slept the two nights before that,” Derek says, “and you were just literally asleep on your feet.”

“I’m making pancakes, I’m gonna put blueberries in them – ”

“We can have blueberry pancakes some other time,” Derek says firmly. “Someone else can handle making breakfast for the pack.”

“But we have to figure out what to do about Mac – ”

“We will figure that out _after_ you have gotten some sleep,” Derek says.

“There’s a gold star in it for you,” Scott adds.

Stiles glowers at him for a few moments. Then a few longer moments. Then his eyes close as his weight sags against the counter. He jerks upright a few moments later. “I wasn’t asleep!”

“Sure,” Derek says. “C’mon. You. Bed. Now.”

Stiles makes a grunting noise. “Me Tarzan, you Jane – ”

“Funny,” Derek says, but he doesn’t object to Stiles making fun of him. He just reaches out and gets Stiles around the waist, hauling him up and slinging him over one shoulder. “Say good night, Stiles,” he says.

“G’night Stiles,” Stiles says obediently, swallowing a yawn. “I still get my gold star, right?”

“Yes, you can still have your gold star,” Derek says, his voice fading a little as they head up the stairs.

Scott gives a snort of laughter and a fond little smile as he heads for the coffee.

“Okay, I have to ask,” Veronica says. “Gold star?”

Scott laughs again and pours them both a mug. “Hang on a sec,” he says, and then calls over his shoulder. “Hey, Boyd, Allison? Could you come help with breakfast?” To Veronica, he adds, “I’m . . . not allowed to try to cook. There was, uhm, an incident. In my defense, Wal-Mart brand furniture polish and Wal-Mart brand spray grease do look an _awful_ lot alike.”

Veronica laughs as Boyd and Allison comes in. Boyd sniffs and says, “Bacon?”

“In the oven, yeah, but Stiles didn’t set a timer. He must’ve forgotten. Or thought he had but didn’t. You’ll have to keep an eye on it. The pancake batter looks done, though.”

“Okay,” Allison says, and the two of them get to work.

Scott waves for Veronica to follow him out of the kitchen to give them a little room, back into the living room where the rest of the pack are still watching television. They retreat to a corner so they won’t bother anyone else. “So, the gold stars. As you may have noticed, Stiles has a nasty habit of trying to handle _everything_ by himself. It’s partly because he’s the alpha, partly his ADD, and partly just Stiles being Stiles. But he’ll run himself into the ground when things get bad like this, to the point where – well, to the point where he’ll fall asleep on his feet. Or just . . . it can be bad, sometimes, when Stiles doesn’t get enough rest.” His face gets a tight, pinched look. “Sleep deprivation can cause hallucinations, and, well . . .”

“When someone’s had as much bad stuff happen to them as has happened to Stiles, I can imagine that wouldn’t be a picnic,” Veronica says, sipping her coffee.

“Yeah, exactly,” Scott says. “So a while back, we instituted a system where Stiles gets a gold star every time he lets somebody else do something that he would typically deal with himself. Whether it’s making breakfast for the pack, picking up Boyd and Erica on the way to school so he can sleep a little later, simple stuff like that, or sometimes bigger stuff like supernatural research or surveillance or whatever. Because life . . . doesn’t let up for us, a lot of the time. That’s the price of living in our world. And it’s not that Stiles doesn’t _trust_ us. He does. He knows what we’re capable of, maybe even better than we know ourselves. But . . .”

“No, I get it,” Veronica says. “It’s the same way I couldn’t let it go when I was investigating you guys.”

“Yeah,” Scott says. “As Stiles himself has said: PTSD, the gift that keeps on giving.” He gives a little shrug. “Anyway, so every time he lets one of us handle something that he’d rather handle himself, he gets a gold star. And for every ten gold stars, he gets a prize.”

“Like what?” Veronica asks, laughing.

“Generally whatever he feels like, within reason. Once he got a new video game he’d been wanting, once Derek took him to Whole Foods and let him go on a buying spree. Once his dad ate his vegetables for a week without complaint, even when Stiles served some horrible kale salad that even he wouldn’t touch. Once it was some sort of sex act or position which I personally want no details on, but shall forevermore be referred to as ‘the gold star’.”

Veronica can’t help but giggle. “Wow. Just . . . wow.”

“He complains constantly about how it’s silly and childish and he shouldn’t have to put up with it, but every time he gets one of those dumb stars, he _has_ to put it on the chart himself. He won’t let anyone else do it.” Scott grins. “So, you know, whatever works.”

“I’m a big fan of ‘whatever works’,” Veronica agrees. She’s about to say something else when the doorbell rings. Since Boyd and Allison are in the kitchen and everyone else is still a wolf, Scott heads over to open it. Veronica is surprised to see Logan standing on the doorstep. “What are you doing here?” she asks, walking over.

Logan wraps his arms around her waist and gives her a tight squeeze, pushing his way into the house without being invited. “You’re all right,” he says, relief obvious in his voice. Then he lets her go and says, “Okay, now that I’ve gotten that out of my system: the _hell_ is your problem, Veronica?”

Veronica blinks at him. “What? Why are you – ”

Logan pulls out his phone and begins to ostentatiously read her text from the previous evening. “Ran into Stiles at school. Following new lead. Will call tomorrow, love you bye.” He tucks the phone away. “Awwww. I like the last part especially. Except I can’t help but notice the conspicuously _absent_ reference to the dead body of the guy you went to talk to.”

Veronica winces. She also shuffles a little nervously, wondering how long it’s going to take Logan to notice the four wolves sitting less than ten feet away. None of them are moving, but their heads are up and they’re watching this little drama curiously. “How do you even – ”

“Because it was on the news this morning, for Christ’s sake,” Logan says. “Body of janitor found at Neptune High, gee, it’s the guy Veronica was going to go see about stalking Gia Goodman, what’s that, Woody Goodman committed suicide last night? What the _hell_ happened in the last twelve hours that I don’t know about?”

“Uhm, it’s a little . . .” Veronica trails off, at a loss as to how to explain. She wanted to tell Logan about the werewolves and the supernatural things happening, but she hadn’t even thought about how to break the news to him. “It’s complicated, I didn’t want you to . . .”

Before she can finish her sentence, Boyd comes out of the kitchen, carrying a spatula. “Uh, breakfast is gonna be ready in a minute,” he says.

Erica springs to her feet, stretches thoroughly, and shifts back to her human form. “Great, I’m starved. Hey, Logan.”

“Hey, Erica,” Logan says, and turns back to Veronica. “You didn’t want me to what? Be involved? I _am_ involved, Veronica, if you’re involved, you should – ”

“Okay, wait, stop,” Veronica says, trying to get her bearings. “I’m sorry, but I have to ask when you’re going to notice that you’re standing in a room full of wolves, one of which just changed back into being human.”

“What, seriously?” Logan asks. “They’re werewolves, remember?”

Veronica blinks at him. “I – but – you didn’t – ”

“Three weeks ago, you said, ‘what if they’re werewolves?’ And I said ‘yeah, that sounds like it would explain everything’. When did we let go of the werewolf theory? I liked the werewolf theory!”

“But – but werewolves aren’t – ”

“Real? Seriously? You’re going to go with ‘werewolves aren’t real’ when we’re standing in a room full of them?” Logan asks. He pushes both hands through his hair. “C’mon, you seriously hadn’t figured it out? I solved a mystery before _Veronica Mars_? Okay, this should _definitely_ preempt Woody’s suicide on the news today – ”

“Okay, I’ll bite,” Scott says. “How did you know?”

“You sniff your food before you eat it.”

“What, really?” Erica laughs.

“Yeah.” Logan grins at her. “Especially if it’s the school food, like if you didn’t bring your own lunch from home.”

“What else?” Scott asks.

“Uh, let’s see,” Logan says. “How about the fact that all eight of you are good at athletics, even the science-fiction dork with ADD and the fashion plate gal? Or how about the fact that Erica talks about being epileptic and wears a medic-alert bracelet but doesn’t take any medication for epilepsy?”

“What, how do you even _know_ that?” Veronica asks.

“You’re not the only one who can snoop,” Logan says. “I asked Duncan what sort of meds epileptics take, and then when we were over here last Sunday, I looked around. But the only medication in this entire house is Stiles’ psych stuff and some birth control pills for lovely ladies who shall remain unnamed.”

Veronica just stares at him. “Why . . .”

“Because they’re werewolves!” Logan says. “Because it was so freakin’ obvious! And I asked ‘what happened to the werewolf theory’ and you brushed me off so I decided to prove it! Come on, Veronica! You had all the same facts I did. Danny fell three stories and walked out of the hospital twenty-four hours later? That doesn’t fucking happen! You saw Stiles’ scars – cutters don’t make marks like that. Those wounds were made by something else – they don’t look like knife wounds to me, I got a good look at them, to me they looked like claw marks. Do I need to keep going? Because you kept staring at those paintings and talking about how the paintings had to _mean_ something, all the while ignoring the fact that the big, dark wolf looks exactly like Stiles’ fucking _service dog_! Who incidentally is never seen in the same place at the same time as his _boyfriend_!”

“You’re the one who told me the paintings didn’t mean anything!”

“Yeah, because at that point it was pretty obvious that you didn’t want to acknowledge the whole ‘werewolves are probably real’ thing, you were freaked out enough, so I decided to drop it and I said that to get you to fucking _shut up_ about Stiles and his pack long enough for us to talk about _anything else_!”

Veronica winces again. “You don’t have to be – okay, yes you do, that’s just who you are, but still.”

“You’re taking this pretty calmly,” Scott says, frowning slightly. “Most people kind of . . . freak out when confronted with real, live werewolves.”

“Whatever,” Logan says. “Weirder things are probably true. I still think my sister is some kind of witch or vampire or something. Now will someone please tell me what the fuck happened last night?”

“Does nobody care that breakfast is ready?” Boyd asks.

“I do,” Erica says.

“Me too,” Logan says.

Amused, Boyd says, “Yeah, I guess we can find some room for you,” and heads back into the kitchen. The other werewolves are starting to stand up and shift now.

Logan finally notices Mac, who’s been sitting on her bean bag chair looking awkward, not wanting to intervene. “You called _Mac_ but you didn’t call me?”

“I had to call Mac,” Veronica says, with a sigh. “She’s involved. I’ll tell you the whole story, okay? Now will you just calm down? Please?”

“Can I have breakfast?” Mac asks, somewhat timidly. “I’ll try not to turn into a lizard.”

“I’ll have Allison get you out of the circle,” Scott says. “Do you eat eggs?”

“Yeah, eggs are okay,” Mac says. “I’m not vegan, just vegetarian.”

It takes a few minutes of wrangling, but everyone manages to sit down in the kitchen, some people around the table, some perched on the counters, and a few others on the floor. Stiles had made pancake batter which Boyd has turned into quite passable pancakes, and there’s bacon and scrambled eggs, plenty of coffee and orange juice.

“I’d say we should give him werewolf 101, but he actually seems to have figured most of it out on his own,” Lydia says, reaching for the eggs.

“The one thing I couldn’t figure out was the red hoodie he’s always wearing in the paintings,” Logan says. “Obviously it symbolizes something, but what?”

“Stiles is the alpha of the pack,” Scott says, “so his eyes turn red instead of gold, like the rest of us.”

“But Derek said painting him with red eyes was melodramatic and nobody would want to buy the paintings,” Isaac adds, “so instead he paints him in that red shirt.”

“Then this other guy started passing the paintings around and spreading rumors about it, and Stiles got this semi-official title of ‘the boy in red’,” Allison says. “So now when he’s on official pack business, he wears that red sweatshirt.”

“Gotcha,” Logan says. “It all makes sense now. Except, you know, Lucky and Woody being dead.”

It takes a while to get everything explained to Logan, especially given that they have to stop periodically and explain things about werewolves, their pack, or the supernatural world in general. Logan seems completely unsurprised that Woody was a serial child molester, although he does make a comment about how he needs to scrub his shoulder with bleach after how many times Woody touched it.

Once everything has been gone over to his satisfaction, breakfast is long gone. “So what now?” he asks.

“Well,” Allison says, “Stiles finally passed out about an hour ago and he’ll probably be down for the count for a bit. He was up nearly three days straight.”

“So . . .?” Logan asks, and everyone blinks at him. “I mean, I get he’s the son of the sheriff and maybe the most badass person here, but are you seriously just going to sit on your thumbs and wait for him to get up?”

“He’s the _alpha_ ,” Boyd and Isaac say in unison.

“We don’t move without his say-so,” Scott adds.

“Oh,” Logan says, and shrugs. “Okay. This is your world, so if you say so. Speaking of, is there a way to figure out who else in town might know about this kind of stuff? I mean, that’s the sort of person who would be able to get a kanima, right?”

“Unfortunately, most people who play in these waters tend to play it close to the vest,” Lydia says, and gestures to the table as a whole, “as you can see. Until we know something about _how_ the kanima bonds with a master, we won’t really have any criteria that we can use to narrow down our pool of suspects. I know that Stiles was gathering research from a variety of sources.”

“How long will he sleep?” Logan asks.

“About twelve hours less than we’d all like him to,” Scott says, somewhat sourly.

“What about me?” Mac asks, somewhat timidly. “I mean, I understand you’re not going to let me go wandering off or anything, but uh . . . it would be nice not to have to sit in a magic circle all day.”

“I think we can safely hang out here for the day,” Allison says. “If you start to change . . . we may have to beat you up. Sorry.”

“That seems pretty reasonable,” Mac says.

“Well, at least I have some things to work on,” Veronica says. “Suspects to look up. Logan, you can help me ID all the kids in the Little League photo. I only got about half of them.”

“Sure,” Logan says. “And then, if everyone else is taking a break, you’re going to take a break, too.”

She makes a face at him but says, “Okay.”

They sit down with the photo and between the two of them, manage to identify everyone in it. Two of the kids have moved away and one actually died of leukemia, so that leaves them with ten suspects. None of them are the children of the adult suspects, so Veronica puts it away and reluctantly allows herself to be pulled outside. It’s a gorgeous mid-autumn day. Lydia loans her a swimsuit which fits well enough for her to join them in the pool. Mac decides against swimming. She sits down with some of the others and a game of Risk.

“Nobody in my family will play this with me,” she says as she happily launches an attack against China. “It’s not their type of game.”

“Oh, you’ll get a run for your money here,” Danny says, which is undoubtedly true, given that she’s up against him, Lydia, and Allison. “Just be glad Stiles isn’t playing. It’s not that he’s some kind of tactical genius, but he’s hard to play against because he _never_ does what you think he’s going to do.”

“That’s genius in its own way, I guess,” Veronica says.

“I wish Cassidy was here,” Mac says. “I bet he’d be really good at this.”

“I guess we could invite him?” Scott says, although he sounds a little dubious about doing this without checking with Stiles.

“No, I . . . think I need a little time to not worry about my boyfriend finding out I’m a lizard monster,” Mac says. “I’ll see him on Monday. Anyway, I think he had some . . . investment thing today.” She shrugs a little. “I can never keep up with his financial stuff these days. You’d never guess he’s only seventeen from the corporate empire he’s building.”

“Hey, everyone’s gotta have a hobby,” Boyd remarks.

Mac just laughs and devotes her attention to the game board. Veronica shakes her head and floats on her back for a while, trying to clear her mind. She gets out of the pool when she starts to get sleepy, and heads for one of the deck chairs, listening to Lydia and Allison have a heated battle over South America.

About half an hour later, she’s thinking of getting up and going back to her research when Stiles wanders out of the house with two pitchers of lemonade and a stack of plastic cups. He sets them on the table, where several members of the pack head for them, and then abruptly drops into the deck chair next to her. “What are you doing up?” Veronica asks, somewhat surprised. Derek sits down next to him, glowering.

“I set my alarm when my nursemaid wasn’t looking,” Stiles says. “If I sleep all day, I won’t be able to sleep tonight.”

Veronica somehow doubts that, given how he looks. “So you slept for . . . three hours?”

“And fourteen minutes,” Stiles says. “That’s the length of my sleep cycle. Serious . . . serious research has gone into this.” He yawns and his eyelids sag. “It’s nice in the sun,” he murmurs. “Listen, we need to . . . to talk about . . . what to do about . . .” Another yawn, and he trails off into mumbles. A few moments later, he’s sound asleep.

Derek reaches over with a sigh and carefully eases the pool chair into its fully reclined position. Stiles doesn’t even twitch while he does this. Then he drags over one of the umbrellas so Stiles won’t be in the sun. He sits back down next to him, reaching out to smooth his hair, caress the back of his neck. Then he shakes his head a little and says, “I don’t understand how someone so smart can be so stupid.”

Veronica laughs despite herself, but watches Stiles sleep for a moment, the bemused fondness on Derek’s face and the way he touches the teenager. “You know, I was thinking about the people I talked to in Beacon Hills . . . and I think I understand what they told me now.”

“Oh?” Derek asks, as Stiles shifts a little so he’s mostly on his stomach.

“Nobody wanted to say anything to me. They just wouldn’t talk about Stiles. I thought at the time it was because he had threatened them, had pressured them. But . . . they weren’t afraid of him. They were trying to _protect_ him.” She shakes her head a little. “I don’t know why I didn’t see it.”

“You were scared,” Derek says. “Sometimes we see what we want to see.”

“Jackson told me that he hated Stiles, but that Stiles had saved his life, and that was really all he would say. Harris told me I was barking up the wrong tree. I thought he meant because I was asking the wrong person, but what he meant . . . something bad happened to him, right? And Stiles helped him. He didn’t drop the lawsuit out of fear. He did it out of gratitude.”

Derek nods a little, rubbing slow circles between Stiles’ shoulder blades. “Stiles saved his life, too. When it would’ve been easier to kill him or let him die. Stiles risked his own life to save him.”

“Deaton told me that I was asking the wrong question. That instead of asking why people who messed with Stiles disappeared, I should be asking why they messed with him in the first place. So I asked. And he said ‘because the monsters in the dark will always want to put out the light’. I thought it was maybe some sort of riddle, but . . . it’s not, is it? It’s actually true. Because the world you live in is such a dark place . . . and Stiles . . . all of you . . . are like a candle that holds the darkness at bay.” She shakes her head. “Listen to me. I sound like I’m in a Shakespearean play.”

“Doesn’t make it any less true,” Derek says, with a shrug.

“I guess not.” Veronica looks at Stiles’ sleeping face thoughtfully. “He’s a good person, isn’t he.”

“Stiles? Yeah,” Derek says. “He doesn’t realize it himself, a lot of the time. He’s got that . . . streak of ruthless practicality, and sometimes it scares him, a lot more than it’s ever scared the rest of us. Because we know him. He is a good person. Maybe the best one I know . . . and definitely the strongest.”

Veronica pulls her knees to her chest. “I’m glad he’s on my side.”

Derek opens his mouth to say something else, but then Boyd cannonballs into the pool and a little bit of water splashes on them. Stiles jerks awake. He blinks blearily at Veronica a few times before he starts talking again right where he had left off, as if he has no idea he’s been asleep for several minutes. “I think we should divide our labor efforts,” he says, looking at her with eyes that are almost glassy with weariness. “I’ll research the kanima. There must be a way to track the magical connection back to its master. You . . . research the other kids. Woody’s kids. Find out who might have been involved. Hopefully we . . . we can . . .”

“That sounds good,” Veronica says. “Good, solid plan.”

“Okay.” Stiles’ eyes droop. “You know, I . . . I think I’mma nap. Right now. Naptime.” He closes his eyes and is asleep again. Derek goes over to the edge of the pool and has a quiet word with Scott and Lydia. From then on, all the pool games are quiet ones.

“You know what, I think he’s got the right idea,” Veronica murmurs to herself. She closes her eyes and is asleep a few minutes later.

 

~ ~ ~ ~


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I started this chapter intending for certain things to happen, but then certain other things happened, and I got distracted by Veronica Mars events that had nothing to do with my plot, and Isaac got involved and wanted to have a say, and.... nothing went as expected.
> 
> So uh, non-VM fans, I hope you don't mind our little detour here. ^_^;;;

Stiles sleeps soundly until nearly four o’clock that afternoon. Veronica has been awake for some time at that point, working on her computer and looking up details on some of the pro-incorporation suspects. The pack has been in and out of the pool, playing various games and just enjoying the downtime in general.

Around four, Stiles starts to twitch and shudder in his sleep. Veronica looks over from where she’s working, not sure if there’s something she should do, if it would be better to wake him or let the nightmare run its course. Before she can do anything, Derek jogs over. He’s wearing only a pair of swim trunks, although he hasn’t been swimming, which he casually strips out of before shifting to his wolf form. Then he pads over and noses at Stiles’ face.

Stiles jerks awake with a little noise and nearly falls out of the deck chair, but then focuses on Derek and calms down a little, burying his face in the wolf’s fur. His breathing hitches a few times but then evens out. When he pulls away a little, Derek shifts back into his human form and runs a soothing hand over Stiles’ hair, down the back of his neck. He murmurs something that Veronica can’t quite make out.

“Nn. I’m okay.” Stiles rests his forehead against Derek’s shoulder for a moment, then pulls away. “What time is it?”

Since Derek obviously isn’t wearing a watch, Veronica says, “It’s about four fifteen.”

“Holy crap, why did you guys let me sleep so – oh, never mind, you’re all part of the same damned conspiracy,” Stiles grumps. He rubs a hand over his face and says, “I’m going to take a quick dip in the pool to wake up. Then we’ll plan strategy.”

“Okay,” Derek says, letting him go. Stiles gets up, jogs over to the pool, and does a cannonball right next to Isaac and Scott, who both protest, laughing. General horseplay ensues. Veronica wonders at what point Stiles will realize he’s still wearing jeans and a T-shirt. She supposes it’s possible that he simply doesn’t care.

He emerges about ten minutes later, dripping wet and somewhat more coherent. “Okay, pack meeting,” he declares, and waves everyone over. They gather in the shade in a loose circle, including Mac and Logan, and Scott goes inside to grab Sheriff Stilinski so he can join in, too. “First things first. Have I missed anything exciting while I was, you know, sleeping all day?”

“Allison beat me at Risk,” Lydia says, “and I _will_ have my revenge.”

The pack giggles. “Veronica has resisted almost all of our attempts to make her have fun,” Logan adds. “Soon I’m going to resort to wandering around naked like half of your pack. Which, by the way, had I mentioned how much I like it here?”

Erica, who is indeed currently naked, says cheerfully, “Only because the guys have been trying to spare your delicate sensibilities.”

Stiles gives a snort of laughter and says, “Okay, okay, rein it in. Mac, how are things on your end?”

“I haven’t felt any urge at all to turn into a lizard or start killing people,” she says, “but my parents have started asking when I’m going to be home because Mom wants to know whether or not I’ll be there for dinner.” Somewhat anxiously, she says, “I can’t, like, live here. You know? I understand I can’t be allowed to, you know, be evil, but . . .”

Stiles nods. “We need a solution that will work in at least the semi-long-term. For now, why don’t you tell your parents you’re going to eat here but will be home after dinner and ask if it’s okay for you to have a couple friends over.”

Mac nods and gets out her phone. Her mother is not the best at texting, so she calls home and has a quick conversation. Once she’s gotten everything settled there, she hangs up and says, “So . . . what are we going to do?”

“The good news is that I think we’re actually safe for the moment,” Stiles says, and explains the logic that suggests the murders are over. Most of the others are nodding along. “However, we don’t know that for sure, and I’m not inclined to risk something else happening. So. Mac, I hope you don’t treasure your alone time very much, because for the next week or so, you aren’t going to have any. Girls, I hate to dump the brunt of this on you, but I think Mac would be more comfortable with you as her watch dogs. So we’re going to work out a schedule so two of us are with Mac at all times. Girls at night, guys in the afternoons after school. Mac, do your parents have a habit of barging into your room without knocking?”

“Parents, no. Brother, yes.”

“Okay. We’ll have to think about basic precautions, then.” Stiles taps at the arm of his deck chair. “In school it could be a bit more difficult, but I think there’s at least one of us in each of your classes. Mac, tell me your schedule.”

Mac nods and begins to rattle it off, and it turns out Stiles is right. Danny is in her computer science class. Allison and Lydia share her history class. Isaac, Boyd, and Stiles take expository writing with her. Boyd and Allison are in her French class. Stiles and Lydia both take the same calculus class. Danny and Isaac are in her study hall, and Scott is in her literature elective.

“Okay,” Stiles says. “The kanima doesn’t seem to carry a phone . . . or wear clothes . . . so we wouldn’t be able to track her that way. But if Mac doesn’t show up for one of her classes, whoever shares it with her, text me _immediately_ , and Derek and I will track her by scent. It’s not the world’s best solution, but unfortunately it’s the only one I’ve got.”

“It won’t work forever,” Danny points out, his forehead wrinkled with worry. “The girls will be losing a lot of sleep if you want one of them watching her all the time.”

“Unfortunately, you guys will have to nap in the afternoon to make up for it,” Stiles says. “If you need help keeping up with your school work, let me know. No, Erica, that is _not_ an invitation for you to dump all your homework in my lap,” he adds, and she sticks her tongue out at him. “But no, I’m aware this isn’t sustainable long-term. These are stop-gap measures to keep Mac safe while we locate the puppet master. We’ve got a list of suspects to work with. Veronica’s going to handle that. And I’m going to work from the supernatural side. I can’t help but think there must be some way that we can use the bond the kanima has with its master to track the guy down somehow. So that’s what I’m going to be working on. I need to talk to Deaton. I wouldn’t put it past him to know more than he’s telling us, and if I have to drive back to Beacon Hills to wring it out of him, that’s what I’ll do. In the meantime, I’m still waiting to hear back from Rebekah and Ravinder, and I got an e-mail from Chris, who says that he’s going to reach out to Mikael Aronsson and some of his other hunter contacts to see if he can find anyone who’s got any sort of firsthand experience with a kanima. I’ll see what I can put together.”

“Sounds reasonable,” Sheriff Stilinski says. “Veronica, if you need any of my resources, you let me know, okay?”

“I’m used to working without,” she says, laughing, “but I will. I promise.”

“Now that that’s settled . . .” Stiles’ stomach lets out a growl. “Yeah, dinner,” he says. Then he frowns. “I have this big thing of shrimp and scallops I was going to make, but I guess I can’t.” To Logan, he says, “You’re allergic to shellfish, right?”

“Uh, yeah,” Logan says. “How did you even know that?”

“I dunno, I think you mentioned it one time? We were talking about where to go for dinner and there’s this restaurant you can’t go to because the shellfish gets in everything,” Stiles says.

“And you remember that after I mentioned it one time?” Logan asks, clearly surprised. “Jesus, even my dad doesn’t remember that I’m allergic to shellfish.”

Stilinski narrows his eyes and opens his mouth, probably to say something about his opinion of fathers who don’t keep track of their children’s allergies and/or health needs, but Stiles interrupts and says casually, “I try not to kill my dinner guests. But if nobody’s in a hurry to eat and someone can run to the grocery store, I can make some lasagna. I’ve got a recipe for vegetarian lasagna I’ve been meaning to try anyway.”

“That sounds good,” Mac says, perking up.

This is quickly agreed upon. Stiles makes a list and dispatches Lydia and Isaac to the grocery store while he changes into dry clothes and starts organizing the data he’s gotten so far. Nobody knows much about the kanima, but if he combines various sources, he manages to get a fairly decent picture. There is at least one account of a kanima who was able to turn into a werewolf, and he shares that story over dinner, which makes everyone feel better.

“Honestly,” Mac says, “I think I would’ve gotten right over the switched at birth thing if . . .” Her voice trails off for a few moments.

“If?” Danny prompts.

There’s a pause, then Mac viciously stabs her lasagna and says, “Fucking _Madison Sinclair_.”

Everyone considers this. Then Logan says, “Actually, that seems to be a pretty valid reason to turn into a murder lizard.”

“She’s just such a _bitch_ ,” Mac says. “I _hate_ her. And, and it bothers me to think that my real mom, who honestly seems like a really nice person, got saddled with her when she could have had me. And that maybe Madison wouldn’t have turned out to be such a terrible person and made so many people miserable if her parents hadn’t overcompensated for her not being their own and spoiled her rotten. Or that the parents I have now could have wound up with such a terrible person for a daughter. Does that make sense?”

“Actually that all makes perfect sense,” Veronica says.

“I didn’t feel like I had an identity problem,” Mac says. “I mean, yeah, I didn’t fit in with my family, but I was still _me_. I guess . . . that just wasn’t enough.”

“It’s more than needing to know who you are,” Stiles says. “It’s needing to know how you fit in to the world around you. What your place is, how you’re connected. This?” He gestures to the pack. “This is my place. Geography aside, I am exactly where I want to be. You need to find a connection, too. Something that will ground you.”

Mac nods and settles in to think about this. After dinner, she goes back to her place with Allison and Lydia. Stiles is starting to yawn again, and Derek is not-so-subtly suggesting activities like a movie marathon that will surely end with Stiles asleep.

“I guess we’ll take off for now,” Veronica says.

Stiles nods. “Keep me posted. I’ll see you Monday.”

Logan slings an arm around her shoulders and the two of them leave the house. “You okay?” he asks her, as they head for their respective cars.

“A little freaked out, but . . . yeah,” Veronica says. “I think I am.”

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

Things go more smoothly than Stiles would have anticipated. After some debate, Mac agrees that Danny can be included as ‘one of the girls’, which evens out the numbers and makes things easier. Allison, Lydia, Erica, and Danny take turns staying with her at night, one of them always awake in case she shifts. During the day, after school, Scott, Isaac, Boyd, and Stiles take similar shifts.

Every moment he’s not doing his homework, Stiles is immersed in research. It’s amazing what he can dredge up when he needs to. Rebekah, from the magic shop in Los Angeles, overnights him a package of several books that have references to the kanima or similar shifters in it. He thinks that one of them might have a spell or spells that would enable him to track down the kanima’s master.

In the meantime, Mac goes to classes and plays on her computer and everything seems fine. Veronica is neck deep in suspects and barely has time for anything else. Logan starts to feel neglected and starts showing up at the Stilinski house after school every day. He’ll splash around in the pool with the girls or play video games with Scott and Isaac, or even just sit around and do his own homework. None of them both to ask why he’s there. They know he lives alone, and it’s clear to all of them – who have grown so used to looking for new pack members – that Logan is desperately lonely. He doesn’t show it in the traditional ways, but it’s there, a shadow in everything he says and does.

Stiles would have invited him into the pack in a heartbeat – and still considers it from time to time – if he weren’t with Veronica. He has no family except a father in jail and an older sister he never talks to, that he clearly despises, and no real friends. There’s nothing holding him in Neptune. He gets along with everyone in the pack as well as he gets along with anyone, and his snarky sense of humor always gets Stiles laughing. He’s fearless in a way that a wolf should be – because he has nothing to lose. Or at least he thinks he does.

But he loves Veronica, clearly, and so he wouldn’t leave her. And as much as Stiles likes Veronica, she can’t be part of his pack. She’s an alpha at heart, whether she has the claws or the fangs or the power. She would chafe underneath somebody’s rule.

Of course, there’s always the more long-term solution of inviting both of them and finding an alpha for Veronica to kill so she could form her own pack and take Logan with her at that point – but Stiles thinks that might be getting a little more complicated than he would like. Still, it’s worth thinking about. If they can find a way to ground Mac and help her make the full turn, she’s going to need a pack. Leaving her as omega would be cruel, and there’s no local pack for her to join.

All of this weighs heavily on Stiles’ mind as he grinds through his research, mixing it in between calculus and his essay on the French revolution and his new attempts to master vegetarian cooking.

When his father gets home on Tuesday evening, Stiles can see the tension in the set of his shoulders and jaw, a mix of anger and indecision. He corners his father as he takes off his gun and locks it in the safe, even though he’s very aware that this wouldn’t stop young fingers from getting hold of it. Those are the rules, and if he expects the pack to follow them, he’ll follow them as well. “What’s up?” Stiles asks, and his father explains.

Stiles grimaces, although he has to admit that he’s glad it’s not something to do with lizard monsters or child molesters. “All yours,” he says. Logan isn’t in his pack, and this is something that’s not up to him to handle. His father nods, at least marginally impressed that Stiles isn’t trying to interfere, and heads into the living room, where Logan is watching TV with Isaac and Danny.

He stops in the archway leading to the living room and waits until the occupants look up. “Logan, could I speak to you for a moment?” he asks, gesturing for Logan to follow him.

“I’m innocent, I swear,” Logan says, lifting his hands in surrender. “She told me she was eighteen. Wait . . . Veronica _is_ eighteen.”

“You’re hilarious, kid. Also not in trouble. But please don’t tell me about your sex life.” He makes a follow me gesture with two fingers.

“He hears enough about Erica’s,” Danny comments, and Stilinski grimaces.

“I would love to hear stories that include Erica naked,” Logan says, “but alas, it looks like I’m needed elsewhere.” He stands up and follows the sheriff out of the living room and into a smaller room down the hall that Sheriff Stilinski claimed as his study, where he could have some quiet time away from teenaged werewolves. The wolves will still be able to hear their conversation, but at least they’ll be able to pretend they can’t. It’s growing to be common practice in the pack. There’s only so much privacy one can have, living in a house with a bunch of werewolves, but common courtesy is still a must.

Stilinski closes the door most of the way but doesn’t latch it, and moves further into the room, giving Logan a clear shot at the exit if he wants it. Kids with trauma don’t like being trapped. Stiles, Derek, and Isaac had hammered that point home. The more he sees and learns about Logan, the more he thinks he falls into the same category. “Your father has requested to see you.” Stilinski uses the term ‘requested’ loosely, but Logan doesn’t need to know that. It had definitely come across as a polite, thinly veiled command. “I want you to know that you absolutely have the right to refuse.”

Logan’s face goes tight and pinched as soon as his father comes up, but then relaxes into his normal wise-ass grin. “Absolutely,” he says. “Apparently nobody told him that the sheriff doesn’t like playing errand boy for him.” He shrugs and adds, “If I refuse he’ll just set his dogs on me. Lawyers, I mean. So whatever. Name the time and place.”

“You name the time and place,” Sheriff Stilinski says. “As far as I’m concerned, he’s asking for a favor.”

“Well, the place would have to be ‘prison’, and as far as I’m concerned the time can be ‘now’ or at least ‘tomorrow after school’ so I can get it over with sooner rather than later.”

Stilinski nods. “I’ll let them know to expect you after school tomorrow. But if you change your mind, you let me know.”

“Yeah, cool,” Logan says. He hesitates, then says, “But, uh . . . last time they put us, like, in a room together at a table. We didn’t have, you know, the . . . the glass wall and the telephone. I guess they thought, you know, family visit. But I really kind of prefer the glass wall. You know. Between me and the guy who murdered my girlfriend.”

“Then that’s what you’ll have,” Stilinski assures him. He’s careful to keep his tone and expression free of any sort of judgment, although a bit of quiet approval slips in.

“Cool. Yeah. Okay.” Logan shakes his head a little and heads for the door.

Stilinski lets him step out of the room before following. Isaac is sitting in the hallway, back against the wall and his knees loosely drawn up, elbows resting on them. He looks up as they leave the study and then pushes himself up so he’s standing, then gives a slightly apologetic shrug because it’s obvious that he was listening. “I’ll go with you tomorrow,” he says. It’s more of a statement than an offer.

“Okay, but his autographs don’t come cheap,” Logan says.

“I’ll bring my piggy bank,” Isaac says, deadpan.

Logan opens his mouth to say something, then shakes his head a little and says, “Whatever frosts your cupcake, buddy.” Then he heads back into the living room. But his pulse is slowing down, and the smell of him is calmer, less tense and angry. Isaac takes that as a win, since he had been halfway sure that Logan would try to argue him coming.

Logan doesn’t say anything about it at all the next day, but he isn’t surprised to see Isaac waiting at his car at the end of the day. He just shrugs and gets behind the wheel. “Buckle up.”

Isaac puts the seat belt on without hesitation. The incident where Stiles’ brakes had been sabotaged had taught him to love seat belts.

Logan shakes his head a little and thumbs through his CDs. “Rap, rock, or heavy metal?” he asks, then says, “I’m just kidding, I hate rap.” He shoves an album into the stereo and a few moments later, Nine Inch Nails starts to blare through the speakers, the bass notes loud enough to be felt rather than heard.

Isaac startles, jerking back into his seat. “Holy shit!” His hands come up but sort of flap ineffectually, like he isn’t sure whether he wants to cover his ears or paw at the stereo.

Logan reaches out and cranks the volume down. “Werewolf hearing, right?” he asks, and shrugs. “Turn it up as loud as you can stand it. I’ll survive.”

“Yeah, I mean, we’re biologically wired to be able to handle loud noises, or we’d be crippled, but there are limits.” Isaac reaches out and starts gradually turning the music up. By the time he’s done, it’s pretty loud even though it doesn’t actually rattle the windows. Logan obviously doesn’t want to talk, so Isaac respects that, and the music drowns out the nervous, angry thud of Logan’s heartbeat, several notches higher than usual.

The guard at the front desk clears them both through, and Logan sits down at the desk with the phone. Isaac leans against the wall behind him. A normal person wouldn’t be able to hear the conversation that’s about to transpire, but he will.

Aaron Echolls comes out a few minutes later and gives Logan that same disingenuous smile that’s charmed so many ladies. “It’s good to see you, son.”

“Yeah, we should do this more often,” Logan says. Then, without missing a beat: “Hey, look at the time. Gotta go.”

Isaac isn’t sure what he had expected, but it wasn’t that smile. It’s _wrong_ somehow, and he thinks his fur would be standing up if he were to shift forms. He thinks Logan’s last statement is the smartest thing he’s said all week.

“Logan, please, sit down,” Aaron says. He takes a deep breath as Logan sinks reluctantly back into his chair. “I know you’re angry at me – ”

“Gee, Dad, what gave you that idea?”

“But I’m still your father and I’m trying to look out for you. Even from in here.”

Isaac feels his eyebrows climb at this. It’s a ridiculous statement, really, but the man’s heartbeat is rock steady.

“Wow, I’m touched,” Logan says, putting his free hand against his heart. “Where was this concern for me for the last seventeen years?”

“I know I’ve made mistakes, Logan – ”

“Actually, I’m pretty sure the word ‘mistake’ implies that it was an accident or unintentional, so no, I don’t think you’ve made any mistakes at all. Unless you include getting caught.”

Aaron sighs. “Logan. Please. I just want to talk to you about the trial.”

Isaac continues to watch silently, wondering how this is in any way ‘looking out for Logan’, and he really wants to let his lip curl back to show his teeth, but he doesn’t. He just watches Aaron like he’s prey.

“What about it?” Logan asks, one hand tapping restlessly at the arm of his chair.

“I’m concerned about the impact it could have on you. After all, if you get up on the stand, you may say things you’ll regret later. Especially when I’m acquitted. You could be accused of perjury. There are legal consequences – ”

“Dad, if you’re acquitted, being charged with perjury is the _least_ of my concerns,” Logan says, and he’s calm on the surface, but Isaac can hear his heartbeat spinning out of control, smell the fear, the anger, the _agony_ that’s underneath it all. “What’s it like in this fantasy world where you’re going to be acquitted?”

“Logan, you know that the prosecution doesn’t have a solid case. Yes, the tapes prove I had sex with Lilly, but not that I killed her.”

“Well, Dad, given your history of violence – ”

“What history of violence?” Aaron’s looking dead into his son’s eyes. “Is that something you’re going to talk about on the stand?”

Isaac moves forward, fully prepared to end this travesty of a family visit, but Logan waves him off. With the same casual tone, he says, “Oh, well, the lawyers have briefed me at length about how I shouldn’t bring up things I can’t prove, and since you _usually_ didn’t leave scars that only leaves me with a few options, like the cigarette burns.”

“I think that’s outside the statute of limitations,” Aaron says, smiling again.

“I’m sorry, but are you mistaking me for someone who gives a shit? I’m testifying, Dad. Get over it.”

Aaron shakes his head a little. “I think you’re making a mistake. You know it’ll make Veronica look bad, too. Just another guy in her string of rich boyfriends – ”

“You shut the _fuck_ up about Veronica,” Logan snaps, and Isaac isn’t sure if he’s edging towards panic or rage. He thinks they may be the same thing with Logan. Aaron only gets one more chance to keep things civil, or this is over, whether Logan tries to wave him off or not.

“You do realize how much of this trial hinges on her testimony, right?” Aaron asks. “About what happened in the car that night? About how she tried to blackmail me with those tapes, tried to force herself on me?” Aaron’s still smiling, but now it’s ice cold. “So, Logan, you may want to think about what your life is going to be like, _when_ I’ve been acquitted, and I think it’s going to depend a lot on what you said on the witness stand. Don’t you?”

Isaac leans across Logan, deliberately cutting off his line of sight and gently takes the phone out of his hand. He puts the phone to his own ear and looks at Aaron. “Logan will tell whoever he wants whatever truth he sees fit. And if by some chance in hell you are acquitted, it won’t matter, because you _won’t_ be laying a hand on him or Veronica ever again.” With that, he slams the phone back down in the cradle and turns back to Logan. “Come on. Time to go.”

Logan seems too stunned to argue. He clearly has no idea what just happened. He glances over his shoulder as they leave, unable to help it, watching Aaron watch them leave. Once they get back to the car, he realizes that he’s shaking.

Isaac watches him for a few moments in silence, then asks, “Do you want me to drive?” He’s not sure which Logan will want more, to get away from his father or to be in control of his environment.

“No. Fuck it.” Logan turns the key in the ignition and peels out of the parking lot at speeds that many would not consider safe.

Isaac hastily puts his seat belt on. “Dude, only one of us has superhuman healing abilities.”

“You wanna get out?” Logan asks.

Isaac just gives him a look in response.

“Then shut the fuck up,” Logan says, getting on the highway and heading back towards Neptune.

“It’s your car,” Isaac agrees with a shrug. Apparently ‘in control of his environment’ was the winner. After that, he lets the silence stand for a little while. It’s not like Isaac has ever been a big talker, anyway.

Logan’s speed gradually bleeds away from the manic nineties into the more reasonable seventies as the adrenaline wears off, but when he takes their exit, he stops at the light and just stares into space for a minute. “Hey . . . you mind if we just . . . drive, for a bit?”

Isaac shakes his head. “I don’t mind.” It’s better than Logan pretending nothing was wrong.

Without saying anything in response, Logan makes a left and gets on the Pacific Coast Highway. It’s a winding road the goes along the ocean, more populated in some parts than in others. The traffic doesn’t seem to bother him. He just continues to stare out into space. After about twenty minutes, he stops at an overlook, parks the car, and gets out. The ocean is a good fifty feet below, crashing against the rocks. “My mother,” he says, “was so desperate to get away from that jackhole that she threw herself off a fucking bridge.”

Isaac follows him, not missing the parallel of wanting to escape his father and standing on the edge of a nasty drop. He’d like to grab Logan in a bear hug and back them both away from the edge, but he doesn’t think it would go over very well. Instead, he moves close enough that he would be able to make a solid grab for Logan if he had to. “I’m sorry.” He turns so he’s mostly facing the water, although he can see Logan in his peripheral vision. “Do you think she was afraid nobody would help her if she asked?”

“I don’t have a clue what she was thinking.” Logan kicks a rock off the edge and watches it fall. “I thought about it too, you know. I see what you’re thinking over there. But I won’t jump. Not because of Veronica or anything sappy or even because I want to live so bad. I just don’t want him to feel like he’s won.”

With a little shrug, Isaac doesn’t bother to deny that he had been nervous over Logan playing at the edge of the drop. “Spite is as good as anything else right now if it keeps you breathing.” Living out of spite at least keeps a person going long enough to find something better.

“I used to think to myself, well, at least it’ll be over someday.” Logan picks up a rock and hurls it into the ocean. “Like, I would turn eighteen and just take off and never have to see him again. But it never will be. Even if he’s convicted, there’ll be appeals, and he’s just never gonna let me go. Even if he gets sentenced to life in prison, he won’t let me go.”

“How do you figure?” Isaac asks, honestly curious. “I don’t think the appeals would really involve you. You’re emancipated now. Just . . . cut off contact.” He turns to face Logan fully for a minute. “Or let someone else do it for you, if you can’t.” He turns back out to the ocean. “Because I know it can be a lot harder than it sounds. But I’m pretty sure if you got a restraining order, he wouldn’t be allowed to try to contact you.”

“I’ve kind of enjoyed being the thorn in his side,” Logan says, and then gives a shrug. “He’d find a way. He gets what he wants. Y’know?”

“Yeah. I know.” Isaac shoves his hands in his pockets. “Except in the end, that’s not true. You don’t belong to him.”

“I guess.” Logan throws another rock. “Fuck it. If he gets acquitted, I’ll just go live with you guys.”

“Okay.” The word falls out of Isaac’s mouth before it can occur to him that he probably should check with Stiles before making a promise of shelter and protection like that, because it is a promise, and one he won’t take back. “I’d dare him to come after you then.”

“I know, right?” Logan laughs. “I could just be like ‘fuck you, Dad, I’ve got fuckin’ werewolves’.”

This gets a laugh out of Isaac. “In this particular case, he should maybe fear Papa Stilinski more.”

“Are you kidding?” Logan asks. “You think my dad is going to be afraid of the sheriff? Yeah, that won’t happen. Not even a hardcore mofo like this one.”

“Then he’s stupid as fuck.” Isaac looks down and then kicks a rock out over the water. It sails as if it were pitched by a professional ball player, rather than idly kicked by a teenaged boy. “Papa Stilinski has a _thing_ against child abusers.”

“Doesn’t everybody?” Logan asks. “But seriously, I guess that was always part of my problem. I mean, my dad owns the house. So . . . where would I go? I can’t get a restraining order against the dude whose house I live in.”

“True,” Isaac says, with a nod. “But moving from house to house with the rest of the pack stopped feeling weird after a few days.”

“So, you . . .” Logan rubs his hand over the back of his head. “You’re actually serious about that? I’m like ‘hey, I’ll just go live with you guys’ and . . . that’s totally okay?”

“Yeah.” Isaac gives a half-shrug and decides not to mention that technically, he isn’t supposed to invite members into the pack without clearing it with everyone else, particularly Stiles. He’s going to be doing some apologizing to his alpha, but he’s pretty sure that Stiles won’t make him take it back. “Papa Stilinski may ask you some questions, but he won’t say no.”

Logan shakes his head. “You guys are weird,” he says, but lets it go at that.

“We’re aware,” Isaac says, his tone dry and amused.

“Yeah, well . . . thanks for going with me today,” Logan says, and then heads back towards his car before Isaac can reply.

Isaac follows him and gets in. “You’re welcome. I know how it can be.” But he’s content to let the subject drop if that’s what Logan wants.

 

~ ~ ~ ~


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> omg this fic is almost over, what am I going to do with myself

Stiles is waist deep in kanima research when his phone rings. He looks over to see that it’s Chris Argent, and grabs the phone. “Hey,” he says. “What’ve you got?”

Chris, as usual, sounds a little bit sour to be helping Stiles out. “Your e-mail said you wanted to be put in touch with one of the organizations that takes care of sorcerers and such. Why?”

“You couldn’t just trust that I needed one?” Stiles asks, stung.

“They’ll want details, Stiles. They don’t just show up whenever someone lights up a bat signal.”

Stiles lets out a snort, amused despite himself. “Remember the pedophile who had mastered a kanima and was using it to kill people?” he asks, and Chris makes an ‘mm hm’ noise. “As it turns out, the pedophile wasn’t entirely guilty. Of molesting people, yes. Murder, no. Our best guess right now is that the kanima’s master is actually a fellow victim, who is so desperate for people not to know he was molested that he’s killing anyone who’s thinking about coming forward.”

“Jesus,” Chris says.

“Yeah,” Stiles says. “You see my problem.”

Chris makes a noise of assent, then says, “You need Oblivion.”

“I need who-to-the-what now?” Stiles asks.

“Oblivion. It’s an organization. Not the one I would have chosen for Jackson back when he was misbehaving, most likely, or the one I would have chosen for the pedophile, had you asked me. Oblivion deals more with people who have been victimized by the supernatural world somehow, and weren’t able to handle it. Like that science teacher, Harris, after what Sebastian Stone did to him. He _was_ able to get it together, after a little while, but if he hadn’t been . . . I was planning to call Oblivion. They have facilities that are kind of a cross between mental institutions and high-security prisons. They rehabilitate when they can, and if they can’t, they just keep the person as long as need be.”

“Sounds like exactly what I need,” Stiles agrees. “Do they provide cover?”

“Yes,” Chris says. “Once you find this kid, they would take him to their facility and come up with some plausible fiction to feed the family.”

“Will they take my word on it?”

“No,” Chris says, with a snort. “You’d need someone to vouch for you. Someone that’s dealt with them before that they trust. It’s sort of like a referral system.”

“Okay. Will you vouch for me?”

“I haven’t dealt with Oblivion directly, but Julien has. They ought to accept his word, and he’ll vouch for you if I ask him to.”

“Cool,” Stiles says. He glances up as there’s a quiet knock on the door. Isaac enters the room and Stiles motions for him to wait. “Okay. I’ll keep you posted, but to be honest, this may take some time.”

“I’ll get you a contact,” Chris says. “After that, you’ll run everything through him or her, and I won’t be involved.”

“Okey dokey. I’ll wait to hear from you, then.”

Chris hangs up without another word. Stiles rolls his eyes a little and then looks up at Isaac, who’s shifting from foot to foot, clearly uncomfortable even without the pack bond reinforcing that. “What’s up?” Stiles asks, although he’s ninety-nine percent sure that he already knows. He’d love to tell Isaac ‘everything’s fine, stop worrying’, but there _is_ pack protocol that needs to be obeyed, and even if he doesn’t intend to discipline Isaac, Isaac still needs to defer to him.

Isaac looks at Stiles and then down, turning his head to the side a little so he’s showing his throat. “I, uh, made some promises to Logan that I can’t keep alone,” he says, swallowing hard.

“You invite him into the pack?” Stiles asks, his voice mild, merely curious.

Isaac starts to shake his head, but then stops himself. Moving is bad when one might be in trouble. It attracts attention. He knows that Stiles isn’t his father, but old habits die hard, especially with all the memories right near the surface after watching Logan and his father. “No. But I did tell him he could come live with us if his father was acquitted. Mr. Echolls threatened Logan and Veronica, and I told him he wouldn’t be allowed to touch either of them.” He confesses everything in a rush.

Stiles has to bite back a smile. “So . . . you invited him into the pack.”

“I didn’t mean to,” Isaac says, with a wince.

“I’m glad,” Stiles says. “That you did it, I mean.”

Isaac deflates, the tension leaving his body. He sinks right down to the floor and leans his shoulder against Stiles’ legs. “So it’s okay? I just . . . his father. He’s just . . . a psycho.”

Stiles slides out of his chair so he can sit on the floor with Isaac, reaching out and pulling Isaac into an embrace, one hand cradling the back of his head so Isaac’s face was resting against his shoulder. “I knew you’d do it,” he says. “Don’t you think I know you?”

Isaac inhales once, deeply, and then his breathing evens out as he goes boneless against Stiles. He hadn’t realized quite how terrified he was at the idea that Stiles might be angry with him until it was over. “I . . . hadn’t really thought that far ahead. All I was thinking was that Logan needed someone who wasn’t afraid of his father, but understood what it was like, you know?”

“I know,” Stiles says. “Well, I don’t _know_ , but, you know. I know.” He tousles Isaac’s hair. “Don’t worry too much, though. I’ve looked at the evidence. I think it’s pretty damned likely that the guy is going to jail for a long time. Logan will be okay.”

“He’s still worried. His father owns the house he lives in, and there are always appeals.” Isaac shrugs against Stiles. “He says he’ll never escape. And I know there’s really only so much you can do from a jail cell, but he really does live in a place where everything goes his way, and I think . . . maybe he gets rid of things that don’t, you know? Like Kali.”

Stiles huffs out a breath, remembering Kali, and Isaac can hear the momentary quickening of his heart rate before he pushes away the memories. “Good times all around,” he says. “Hell, I would offer Logan a place in the pack right now, if it weren’t for Veronica. She won’t leave Neptune and I won’t make him choose between her and the pack.”

“Yeah, that would fuck him up.” Isaac is quiet for a long moment. “I don’t know how well Veronica would do in the pack anyway.”

“Veronica would make a great werewolf,” Stiles says, “but a piss-poor beta. Is what you’re thinking.” He laughs. “Right?”

“Yep,” Isaac says, humor and life working their way back into his manner. “I can’t even imagine her doing what she’s been asked without question.”

“Actually, she’d make a fantastic alpha,” Stiles says, and shrugs. “In a parallel universe, maybe. But for now let’s not worry about it. We’ll extend our umbrella of protection to Logan as long as we’re here. After that, he’ll have to make his own choices.”

“What, a parallel universe where werewolves are real?” Isaac asks, amused. He likes Veronica, he truly does, but hearing her try to protest that werewolves weren’t real had almost made him roll onto his back and kick his paws in amusement. “Thanks.”

Stiles ruffles his hair. “No problem.” He stands up and stretches. “Ugh, I’ve been cooped up in here for hours. You wanna go for a swim?”

Isaac nods. “I’m gonna miss having the pool when we get home. It’s one of the few things that I’ll miss.”

“We’ll talk Derek into putting one in,” Stiles says, with supreme confidence.

“Not a chance,” Isaac says. “The chlorine is actually pretty obnoxious. But it’s nice to enjoy for a while, you know?”

“Oh, yeah, I guess that probably bothers you guys a lot more than it bothers me,” Stiles says, then shrugs. He pushes open the door to the hallway, then shouts loud enough for everyone in the house to hear, “Last one into the pool has to do the dishes tonight!” and takes off at a dead run.

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

“Hey, V,” Stiles says, holding the door open to let her in. “How’s it going?”

“Is there a specific word for ‘I feel like I’ve been beating my head against an unyielding brick wall for the past four days’?” Veronica asks. “Because if so, that’s the answer to your question. Tell me you’ve had better luck.”

“Yes and no.” Stiles heads into the kitchen, where he’s got papers spread out all over the table. “No luck on identifying our puppet master?”

“Well, I’ve managed to successfully rule out pretty much all the other kids on the baseball team,” Veronica says. “I guess that’s sort of the opposite of luck. I started with ten. Five of them were automatically ruled out because they were at the football game Friday night when Woody was killed. That was an away game and it went into overtime, so they didn’t get back until after eleven. Way after Woody’s murder. Of the remaining five, at least two would have rather stuck their dick in a beehive than voluntarily talk to Peter Ferrer. One of them is Carrie Bishop’s boyfriend and it is _very_ publicly known that they were ‘together’ that night. One of them currently has a broken arm after a rugby game and couldn’t have physically gotten Woody strung up. And the last one actually dropped out of school in the middle of last year, so he couldn’t have been the third person in the recording.”

“Okay,” Stiles says. “What about the adults?”

“None is more likely than any other, and none of them want to talk to me.”

Stiles gives a snort. “Okay. Well. I’ve got some good news, although the extent to which it’s good will depend on you.” He flips through his stack of papers and pulls out a sheet with a bunch of text that looks like gobbledygook and random symbols. “This,” he says, “is a spell that should allow us to transfer the ownership of the kanima, if you’ll let me use that word, to someone else.”

“Override the current bond?” Veronica asks, excited. “That’s _great_ news! Why didn’t we start with that?”

“I’ll get to that in a minute,” Stiles says, holding up a finger to caution her. “It’s actually not too difficult. We’ll need some of the kanima’s venom, which Allison thoughtfully already procured for us, and some blood of whoever we’re bonding the kanima to – which in this case would be you. Which means you get to perform the spell.”

“I . . . what?” Veronica’s enthusiasm deflates. “I don’t know anything about how to do magic.”

“Well, the good news is that you don’t have to,” Stiles says. “Magic is less about knowledge and more about belief. If I give you this, and tell you it will work, knowing everything that I know, do you believe me?”

Veronica thinks about it, then nods. “Yeah.”

“Then it’ll work. You just have to _believe_ it. And it helps that you and Mac are already close friends.”

“So . . . why are we not doing this right now?” Veronica asks.

“Because I’m still trying to find a spell that would allow us to _trace_ the bond that the kanima currently has,” Stiles says, “and I’m beginning to think that that’s going to be the only way we’re ever going to find our puppet master. We’ve got too many suspects. If my dad is right about the murders being over, there will be no new evidence, no new leads. We’ll have to work with what we’ve got – and it isn’t enough. None of these people are going to talk to us, and now that the case is officially closed, my dad really can’t ask anyone any questions about it. I want Mac to be safe. I do. But I also want to find the guy who killed four people.”

He takes a breath. “But,” he says, “this isn’t my territory. So this is a decision I’m going to defer to you. If you think we should do this spell now to keep Mac safe and risk not finding this guy, then I’ll help you learn the spell and we’ll do it right now.”

Veronica thinks about it for a long moment. “But we would never really be safe, would we,” she says. “We know his secret. And if we take the kanima from him, he’ll know that we know about that. Maybe he wouldn’t be able to find us, but . . . we’d be looking over our shoulders for him for a long damned time.”

“Yeah,” Stiles says.

“Then . . . let’s wait on it,” Veronica says. “At least a few more days.”

“Okay.” Some of the tension goes out of Stiles’ shoulders. “That’s kind of what I was hoping you would decide. But I couldn’t make the decision for you.”

Veronica nods. “No, I get that.”

“I have to admit, I’m kind of glad that it looks like it isn’t any of the other kids,” Stiles says. “I was trying to figure out how we would handle that. A child molester who killed his victims to keep them from coming forward about it . . . him I could murder with no regrets. An adult who’s killing kids for political gain . . . I’d lose sleep over it, but I’d still do it. But some poor traumatized kid who’s desperate for the world not to know what happened to him?” Stiles shakes his head. “I couldn’t do it.”

“I think I’m relieved,” Veronica says. “What were you going to do?”

“Been reaching out to some people about that,” Stiles says. “May still use them, as a matter of fact. But I don’t have a solid answer yet.”

Veronica nods. “What are we going to do about Friday night?”

Stiles sighs and rubs both hands over the back of his head. “My pack is expected back in Beacon Hills. Not all of their parents are in the know, and it will ruffle an amazing amount of feathers if they don’t make an appearance. I’ll stay here, and so will Derek. But I think it’s safe to let Mac go on her date, as long as we see her off. I somehow doubt the kanima’s master will want to make someone suspicious by having her run out in the middle of her romantic evening, and he’s obviously got at least some peripheral awareness of what’s going on around her and whether or not she’s alone and it’s safe for her to shift.”

“I’m glad,” Veronica says. “I really don’t want to ruin this for Mac.”

“Yeah,” Stiles says. “So you want to learn this spell or what? You can’t exactly practice it, but you’ll need to know what to do.”

Veronica nods. “Let’s get to it.”

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

“How do I look?” Mac asks, turning to Veronica and Stiles with an excited flap of her hands.

“Stunning,” Veronica says, admiring the dress, which flatters Mac’s figure, and the hairstyle that her mother had done for her.

Stiles reaches out and tucks one of the loose curls behind her ear. “Exquisite,” he agrees. “Where’s he taking you, again?”

“He said, dinner at the Edgewater Grill,” Mac says, “and then . . .” She lowers her voice a little and says, “He got us a room at the Neptune Grand for the night.”

“Classy!” Stiles says, approving. “Do you need condoms?”

“Oh my _God_ ,” Mac says, laughing. “Noooooo. I am capable of getting my own. Done and done.”

“Good for you,” Veronica says, grinning. “Stiles, stop trying to alpha everybody.”

“Oh, is that a verb now?” Stiles asks, grinning. Downstairs, the doorbell rings. Mac lets out an excited squeal. “Okay, you have fun, don’t do anything we wouldn’t, and yes, that leaves you an entire world of possibilities. Remember to call and check in after you get home . . . unless it’s at six AM, in which case screw that, you’re on your own.”

“Okay!” Mac bounces out of her room and down the hallway. They hear low voices as Cassidy is introduced to her parents, then a few minutes later the front door opens and closes.

“I hope it’s okay to let her go out on her own,” Veronica says.

Stiles gives a sigh. “We can’t be with her every moment of every day the rest of her life. We’re just going to have to take some chances.” He slides Mac’s window open and gestures for Veronica to follow her out. “You wanna come back to my place?”

“Sure,” Veronica says. “Dad’s in Mexico right now anyway.”

“The house feels weird with everyone else gone,” Stiles says. The rest of the pack had left for Beacon Hills directly after school. Only he and Derek remain. “Hell, Logan can come over, too. We’ll order Chinese food and solve cold cases together.”

Veronica laughs. “It’s a date,” she says. She pulls out her phone and sends him a quick text. He replies in the affirmative, and actually beats them there, since he doesn’t live too far away from the rented Stilinski house, unlike Mac, who lives on the other side of town. Derek orders the Chinese food while they’re on their way, and it arrives not long after they do.

He intends to get some research done, but Derek has already got one of his favorite episodes of Supernatural queued up, so he allows himself to be pulled down onto the sofa. Of course, episodes of Supernatural are like potato chips; you can’t just have one. It’s nearly ten o’clock at night before it occurs to him that he actually had work to do.

“Coffee?” Veronica asks, sitting at the kitchen table next to him.

“Hazelnut-flavored,” he says, gesturing to the pot on the counter. She gets them both a mug. “You know, I still think that another victim is the best possibility. I just feel like there has to have been better ways to ruin or promote incorporation than killing random people with a supernatural lizard.”

“I can’t argue you with you there,” Veronica says.

“A lot of the research I’ve run across about the kanima says that it’s used against murderers. But it’s not just that. Whoever’s controlling the kanima . . . there’s magic and power here. It’s not something that can be used for petty reasons. The master has to really _want_ people dead. There has to be . . .” He fumbles for words. “A special sort of deep-seated hatred and desperation to form a bond like that.”

Veronica rubs a hand over her face. “I’m pretty sure about the kids that were on the same team, but I can’t be positive. Not without asking a lot of questions that would get me a lot of attention. And as soon as whoever’s behind this realizes we know, we’re going to be in a whole separate sort of trouble.”

“I know,” Stiles says. “But maybe we should think about taking a look at the rosters for the years before and after that team.”

“Okay,” Veronica says. “You’ve got the stuff?”

“Let me grab the files.” Stiles jogs into his dad’s study and comes back with an expandable file full of papers, and dumps it onto the desk. Veronica starts withdrawing folders and sorting them out. “I just, as much as I don’t _want_ it to be another kid, I think that makes the most sense. An adult wouldn’t have gone straight to murder. He would have tried to bribe or threaten Peter and Marcos into being quiet first. Tried to destroy the evidence Lucky had. I just don’t . . . what is it?”

“This picture . . .” Veronica hears her own voice come out thin and tight, like it’s coming from someone else. She’s clutching an eight-by-ten glossy photograph of Peter and Marcos’ team, the same one she’s been studying for a week. “Where did it come from?”

“My dad took a copy of it from Woody’s house when he was investigating the ‘suicide’,” Stiles says. “Why? Haven’t you gotten sick of looking at it by now?”

“I have, but . . . the version I had was from Lucky’s video. I didn’t have a clean version. I couldn’t see the text underneath.”

“Just a list of names,” Stiles says, still not sure why she’s so upset. “Did you get one of them wrong?” he asks, remembering suddenly that she had had to identify everyone from their faces, with help from Logan.

“No, I . . .” Veronica just points, and Stiles leans over to see what’s written in small text underneath the list of names.

‘Not pictured: Cassidy Casablancas’

Stiles just stares at it for a moment. Then he groans. “Oh, God, it makes so much _sense_ now that it’s staring me in the face . . .”

Cassidy, who clearly cares about Mac but is uncomfortable with the idea of physical intimacy.

Cassidy, who created his real estate empire by betting heavily that incorporation would fail.

Cassidy, whose brother and father already tormented him for being shy and reserved and uncertain, who would undoubtedly make his life miserable if they knew what had happened to him.

“Jesus,” Veronica says. “Logan even _told_ me he had been in Little League, but I forgot all about it. When I didn’t see him in the picture, it didn’t even occur to me . . .”

“Call Mac right now,” Stiles says, getting to his feet and grabbing for his shoes and his red sweatshirt. “Tell her we’re coming to pick her up. Don’t tell her why. Just tell her we need to get her right now.”

Derek is standing in the door. “Do you want me to – ”

“There’s no time,” Stiles says, and runs for the car. Similarly, there’s no time to convince Logan that he should stay behind, and he dives into the car with the rest of them. “Veronica, do you have the goody bag I made you?”

Veronica nods, a little breathless, as Stiles backs out of the driveway. “Carried it ever since, as instructed,” she says.

“Good. Get it ready, we might need it.”

Derek speaks up as they skid out onto the road. “I hate to be the adult here, but maybe we’re being a little overzealous. Cassidy doesn’t know that we’re onto him, and we don’t know that he’s aware of Mac’s identity as the kanima. By alerting him, we risk him running.”

“Or hurting Mac,” Logan says.

“He can’t hurt Mac,” Stiles says, his voice tight. “Not anymore. Derek’s right about the rest of it, but dammit – ” He slaps his hand down on the steering wheel. “The only reason I let Mac out of my sight tonight was because I figured the kanima’s master wouldn’t dare risk her shifting in the company of someone who had nothing to do with this. If Cassidy _is_ the master – ”

“He could send Mac after us,” Veronica says.

“Yeah,” Stiles says. “And I don’t know that Derek and I together are enough to beat it. The rest of the pack is six hours away by now. I agree that normally I would let the date run its course and then deal with it once they’ve separated on their own, but we don’t dare risk him figuring out we’re onto him and sending the kanima after us. Going on the offensive is the best option we have right now.”

Derek nods a little. “But we’d better be careful. Cassidy might have dipped his toe into the supernatural world, but he has no idea of the rules that are supposed to govern all of us. He’s in way over his head.”

“What’s important now is getting Mac away from him,” Stiles says. “If we’re lucky, they’ve already done the deed and they’re asleep, and Mac will get our text and sneak out. But knowing what we now know about Cassidy . . .” He lets his voice trail off.

They’re just pulling into the parking lot at the Grand when Veronica’s phone chimes. She grabs it and reads, “Meet me on the roof. We can talk.”

“Why the roof?” Logan asks, frowning.

“That’s got to be a trap,” Derek says grimly.

Stiles nods. “But at least it’s a trap where there won’t be anyone else that can see us. We can handle Cassidy. It’s Mac that I’m worried about.”

“Let me handle Mac,” Veronica says, trying to inject some confidence into her voice.

The elevator ride up to the top floor seems to take an eternity. When they get outside, nobody’s there. It’s chilly so high up, with the wind whipping at their clothes. There’s no sign of Cassidy, Mac, or the kanima. Veronica digs in her bag and pulls out the kit she and Stiles had put together two nights previous. It’s got a vial of the kanima’s venom and one that contains a few drops of her blood, a piece of paper with a symbol scrawled on it, a black Sharpie, and a can of black spray paint. After a moment to gauge her surroundings, she decides that the spray paint will work better.

She’s just shaking the can when Derek says sharply, “No. Use the Sharpie. It’s quieter. And he’s coming.”

 

~ ~ ~ ~


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To those who are Veronica Mars fans, I hope you like the way I've chosen to handle Cassidy's story and what becomes of him. ^_^
> 
> To those who aren't, please keep your hands and feet inside the ride at all times. =D

 

Veronica doesn’t stop to question him. She feels tense, tight, like there’s no time for anything. Logan is standing in front of her protectively, and she hates that, hates him being at risk, even though she knows there’s no way to get him to back down. She takes the Sharpie out and forces herself to stop and take a deep breath, study the symbol one more time, not rush. She draws the symbol carefully on the palm of her hand. Then she begins to draw it on the roof, a much larger rendering.

The door to the hotel opens a few moments later and Cassidy comes out. He’s alone, which is a huge relief to everyone. Logan continues to stand between him and Veronica, although more to block his view of what she’s doing than to protect her. Cassidy looks different, somehow. Less frightened, more sure of himself. He views the assembled company and then lets out a snort. “Figured it’d be you guys. Nancy Drew and Joe Hardy. You just couldn’t let it go.”

“Cassidy,” Stiles says, his voice even, “it’s over, okay? Don’t do anything stupid.”

“Oh, it’s over,” Cassidy agrees, “but not for the reason you think.” He gestures with what he’s holding, and when Veronica looks up, she sees a gun in his hand. Her blood runs cold, and she can hear Derek growling. “Once I’ve taken care of you – ”

“Forget it, Cassidy,” Stiles says, not even flinching. “It’s _over_. Your secret is out. Do you think we don’t know why you’re killing people? I’m sorry for what happened to you, man, I really am. And if you’d killed Woody and stopped there, I wouldn’t have said shit about it. But this – ”

“What do you know?” Cassidy shouts. “You don’t know anything about it!”

“It doesn’t matter,” Stiles says. His eyes are changing now, turning to that crimson light. “You want to shoot me, shoot me. But you’d better have a lot of ammo, because unless those bullets are silver, you won’t be able to kill me with that pea shooter.”

Cassidy hesitates. Just for a moment. But it’s there. Then his finger tightens on the trigger.

“You’ve got no idea what’s happening here,” Stiles says. “You think that you just stumbled upon this amazing weapon and that you could use it without consequences? That just because you managed to circumvent the law, a different sort of authority wouldn’t find you? I am an _alpha_ , and I have a pack to protect, and you are in waters way above your head.”

“I don’t care what you think,” Cassidy says. “I’ve come this far. I won’t stop now.” He looks over at the door as the kanima slinks out, low to the ground, and crouches by his side. “I don’t need bullets when I’ve got that.”

Stiles gives an almost casual glance over his shoulder at Veronica, and she nods at him. “You can kill us if you want, Cassidy, but your secret is out. My dad’s already talked to a bunch of the parents of other kids who were on Woody’s teams over the years – kids with warning signs like drug use, suicide attempts, behavior problems. He’s keeping it on the down low, but there are a lot of people who know Woody’s true colors now.” He watches Cassidy as the news sinks in, watches him shake his head in denial. “But nobody knows about _you_. Marcos edited your voice off that recording he made. They were going to come forward, but they weren’t going to betray your trust. You didn’t need to kill them.”

“It wouldn’t matter,” Cassidy says, his voice thin, like he’s forcing the words out. “It wouldn’t matter if people _knew_. What would matter is what they would _think_. You’ve seen the people in this town. You know how it would go. The rumors. The whispers. That’s how it would start. But it wouldn’t end there.”

Stiles lets out a breath. “I’m really sorry, Cassidy,” he says, “but I’m not going to let you hurt anyone else. Let us _help_ you – ”

Cassidy’s face twists in agony, and he shakes his head, and in that moment Stiles sees that he made a mistake, he pushed Cassidy too far. He had showed sympathy, which in Cassidy’s mind was pity, and that was deadly. So he’s not surprised at all when the kanima darts forward, fast, faster than any werewolf he’s ever seen, not surprised to hear Cassidy screaming ‘kill them all’ in the background like such an order is nothing, not surprised when Derek charges forward to meet the kanima halfway between Cassidy and Stiles and both of them go tumbling to the ground.

In that moment, he is completely defenseless, with Derek tangling with the kanima, a heap of snarling, writhing flesh. He had not stopped to grab any of his weapons. And the others are just as vulnerable. They had known they might have to deal with the kanima, but it hadn’t occurred to him that Cassidy might have a gun. A stupid oversight, really. He had had his pack to protect him for so long that he was starting to depend on them.

All of this goes through his mind in the space of a moment as he watches Cassidy lift his gun. But he doesn’t aim at him. He aims at Veronica. And that, that makes sense, too. He won’t waste his bullets on somebody that he thinks – no matter how erroneously – bullets won’t kill.

He’s just starting to move when Logan throws himself forward. Cassidy pulls the trigger but the shot goes wide as Logan tackles him to the ground. Veronica screams, but the gun goes skidding away. Stiles dives for it, throwing himself right on top of it in case Cassidy manages to squirm free. It takes him only a moment to pop out the clip and the chambered bullet, throwing both of them as far as he could. Then he leaves the gun lying there on the ground just as Cassidy manages to get to his feet.

There’s a yip and a snarl and Stiles turns to see Derek skidding across the roof. “Go!” Cassidy shouts, and the kanima leaps back to its feet and hurls itself at Veronica.

Logan makes a wordless noise of protest, but Veronica is ready. She stands her ground, throwing both vials into the circle she’s drawn and slamming the heel of her sneaker down onto them. They shatter, the blood and the venom mixing together. And then the kanima is on her. It knocks her to the ground, both of them all the way inside the circle, its claws digging into her forearms. But in those bare moments before the venom kicks in, she presses her palm into the center of the kanima’s chest and says, “Cynthia Mackenzie!”

The lines drawn on the roof flare into a bright, white light for a few seconds. Then they’re gone.

“Kill her!” Cassidy screams.

“No,” Veronica says. And the kanima does nothing. It simply stays crouched over her, never giving Cassidy a second glance.

Stiles feels his legs go weak with relief. “Oh, thank God, it worked,” he says.

Veronica reaches up and puts her hand on the kanima’s cheek, for just a moment, before it flops limply back to the ground. Now she can’t move at all. “It’s okay,” she chokes out. “It’s okay, you’re okay now. Mac, you’re okay now.”

The kanima starts to shift. The scales melt away and a few moments later Mac is there, naked and shivering. She looks around in wild confusion. “What – I – how did I – ”

“Mac?” Cassidy’s voice breaks, and he stares at her.

Stiles looks at him, sees the disbelief, the heartbreak in his eyes. “You didn’t know,” he says, a little surprised.

Mac looks over at both of them. “C-Cassidy?”

“Okay, this is, uh, this is a little awkward,” Stiles says, wincing. “But, uh, yeah. Cassidy. Mac. Sorry we didn’t, you know, figure it out sooner although at least we figured it out before he used you to kill anyone else – ”

Derek slips up beside Stiles and puts a hand over his mouth.

Mac stares at Cassidy, tears streaming down her face. “You – how _could_ you?” she asks.

“I – I didn’t know it was you – I – I thought it was just a monster – ”

“Is that _better_?” Mac gets to her feet, unashamed, even unaware of her own nakedness, and slaps him across the face. “You used me! You turned me into a killer!”

Cassidy takes a step back, flinching away from her. “I – ”

“Don’t you dare,” Mac says, angrily wiping away the tears. “Don’t you dare say you’re sorry to me, Cassidy. Don’t you even dare.”

He looks away, presses his hand against his mouth for a moment like he’s trying not to cry, or scream. Then he nods, turns, and just walks away. Stiles breathes a sigh of relief, then tugs his hoodie off and hands it to Mac. She chokes out a thank you and pulls it on. “I just – I just need a minute,” she says, pulling away from them. Stiles lets her go.

“Congratulations,” he says to Veronica, who’s still lying on the floor of the roof. “As my dad would say, you did good.”

“Thanks,” she says, letting out a breath. “I, uh, I can’t move.”

“At least she didn’t get it in your spinal cord,” Stiles says. “It should wear off in an hour or so. We’ll get you home.”

He’s just got her arm around her shoulders and is preparing to lift her up when he hears Logan say, “Cassidy, don’t!” He looks over to see that Cassidy has stepped up onto the ledge that separates them from the drop.

Cassidy looks over his shoulder at them when he hears Logan’s words, and Stiles can see the despair, the utter defeat, on his face. “Why not?” he asks.

But he doesn’t wait for an answer. He just steps over the edge.

His body seems to hang there, suspended, for a moment that stretches on for an eternity. Then Mac screams as he starts to fall. Stiles sees her dive forward, sees her shift, the kanima’s long, reptilian tail whipping out behind her and then flicking forward, wrapping around Cassidy’s waist just as he disappears from view.

She’s still only partially shifted when his weight starts to drag her over the edge and she lands flat on her stomach, caught by his momentum and yanked off her feet. Stiles sees her claw desperately at the flat tile of the roof, trying to slow herself down, but her face is still human, and he can see the fear in her eyes. He’s running then, so is Derek, several steps ahead of him, but he has no idea if they’ll make it to her in time.

Derek reaches her just as she loses her grip and starts to fall and leaps for her. Stiles grabs him just as he manages to snag her by the wrist.

Somehow, and later he’s not even sure how, they all wind up hanging there. Cassidy is wrapped in Mac’s tail. Derek has both of Mac’s wrists in his hands, and Stiles has his arms wrapped around Derek’s ankle and calf. He’s hanging halfway off the roof with Logan on top of his legs.

“Did you get her?” Veronica cries out from where she’s lying paralyzed, clearly half-mad from the terror of not even being able to turn her head and look.

“We got her!” Stiles shouts back. “Cassidy too!” In response, he gets a muffled sob. “Okay,” he says, focusing on the matter at hand. “We’re going to do this slowly and carefully. Logan, whatever you do, do _not_ move. If you get off me, their weight will drag me over. I’m not strong enough to hold onto them all by myself. Derek, I want you to lift Mac. Mac, you’re going to have to get hold of the ledge and pull yourself and Cassidy up. You can do it – you’re a lot stronger than you realize, even only partially shifted like that. Okay?”

They start moving. Stiles never stops giving instruction in that calm, even voice. Mac gets onto the roof with Cassidy, but doesn’t let him go. Then Stiles is able to squirm backwards an inch at a time, dragging Derek with him, with Logan’s help. A few minutes later, they’re all safe again.

Cassidy just sits there for a minute, still with Mac’s tail coiled around his abdomen. Then he looks over at her and whispers, “Why . . .?”

“You _idiot_ ,” she says, letting out a rough sob. “I’m mad at you, okay? I’m really, really mad at you. But that doesn’t mean I want you to die. Why would you even think that?”

“I don’t . . .” Then Cassidy starts to cry, and Mac pulls him into an embrace. Her scales start to fade into skin, and then the tail is gone so it’s just her arms restraining him. Then fur starts to appear, at first down her spine and on the backs of her hands.

“She’s shifting,” Stiles whispers, and she looks up at him because she _heard_ him, even ten feet away and under his breath. Her eyes are pure gold. He sighs in relief and pushes both hands through his hair, feeling like everything’s going to be okay now. Then he pulls out his phone and says, “Gotta make a few calls,” before turning and walking away to give them a little privacy.

Logan looks after him and shakes his head a little before turning to Derek. “You just jumped right off the roof,” he says. “I mean, just, bam. You didn’t even look to see where Stiles was.”

Derek gives a little shrug. “I knew he would catch me.”

“Yeah, but _how_?” Logan asks.

“Because he’s my alpha.”

“Shit,” Logan says, and laughs. “You people are all fucking nuts.” He walks over to Veronica and sits down on the roof next to her, lifting her up so he can cradle her against his shoulder. “How’re you doing?” she asks.

“I can move my toes,” she says brightly.

“Hey, that’s progress,” Logan says.

Stiles walks back over, tucking his phone away. “Cassidy’s ride is going to be here in twenty minutes,” he says. He looks over at where Mac is still holding Cassidy in her arms. “I guess we can afford to let them have a few.”

After a small eternity, Cassidy has finally calmed down enough that Mac is able to help him to his feet. She’s staring at her hands, and looks up at Stiles with wild panic in her eyes. “I can’t – ”

“Easy, easy,” he says, as Derek shifts uncomfortably. “We’ll get you shifted back. No worries. Just breathe, okay?”

Mac nods and takes in a shaky breath. He talks her through a few breathing exercises as she supports Cassidy’s weight, and after another minute, manages to change back to her human form. Derek rubs a hand over her hair in comfort, and she manages a wan smile for him.

“Okay,” Stiles says, and directs his attention to Cassidy. “In a few minutes, we’re going to go down to the lobby. There’s somebody coming to pick you up.”

“And . . . take me where?” Cassidy asks. He rubs a hand over his eyes and says, “Why don’t you just kill me?”

“If you seriously think that we’re going to kill you after we did all that work to keep you from taking that one-step shortcut to the street, you are whacked off your gourd,” Stiles says. “No. I’m not a big fan of killing as a general rule, and I think there’s been enough of it in Neptune for one year. The people coming are from an organization called Oblivion. They handle people like you, who have committed supernatural crimes and can’t be prosecuted under mundane law. They also help people who . . . have been victims. Usually of the supernatural world, but hey, we can’t be picky. They agreed to take you in after hearing about what you’ve been up to.”

“They just take your word on it, huh?” Cassidy asks. “You’re some kind of big-shot.”

“Actually they have a very complicated voucher system that I think might involve actual chips or something,” Stiles says, with a shrug. “There are lots of rules in this world. You sort of . . . leapfrogged most of them. But hey, so did I, at my first rodeo.”

Cassidy wipes his eyes again, still clearly trying to get a hold of himself. “They’re just gonna lock me up forever, huh?”

“Cassidy, you’re a murderer,” Stiles says, as gently as he can. “Four times over. Maybe you had your reasons, but that really doesn’t mean shit in the grand scheme of things. Yeah, they’re gonna lock you up. Maybe if you’re lucky, you’ll get out someday. I don’t know. Once they pick you up, it’s out of my hands. It’ll be up to them . . . and up to you.”

“Why are you trying to help me?” Cassidy asks.

“Because you need help,” Stiles says, “and because I don’t want to have to kill you. I’ve killed before. It leaves . . . scars on the soul. You don’t realize that yet, because you’re still full of hatred. But you will someday. And then you’ll have to live with them. Just like I do.”

For a long minute, Cassidy just stares into the distance. Finally he turns back to Stiles and says quietly, “I’m a monster, aren’t I. Like one of the monsters in your world.”

Stiles meets his gaze. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, you are. But that doesn’t mean you always were . . . or that you always have to be.”

Cassidy wipes the back of his hand over his eyes. “I’ll go with them.”

“Okay.” Stiles gestures to the door that leads back into the hotel. Logan helps Veronica, but she still can’t move her legs or arms. Derek decides to carry her and leave through the back. He obviously doesn’t like letting Stiles out of his sight, but the danger seems to be past. Instead, Logan goes with Mac to go back down to the hotel room and get her clothes, or at least that’s what he intends to do before Cassidy shame-facedly admits that he stole them, because (not realizing she was the kanima) he didn’t want her to follow him. They’re wadded up in a ball on the staircase.

“What am I going to tell my brother?” Cassidy asks, looking away as Mac gets dressed. “He’s an idiot, but he’s not so thick that he won’t notice if I go missing.”

Stiles shrugs a little and says, “Oblivion will come up with some sort of fiction to feed your family. That’s not my department.”

By the time they get everyone downstairs, a black Hummer has pulled up. Stiles pulls a little face despite himself, but doesn’t comment as an elegant woman who looks like she just stepped out of Men in Black gets out of the passenger side of the vehicle. She flicks a gaze up and down Stiles. “You’re Stilinski?”

“Yeah, and if you pull out a neuralyzer, we’re done here,” Stiles says.

“Like I’ve never heard that before,” she says. “Where’s the subject?”

Stiles pulls Cassidy forward. “He came willingly,” he says, “if that makes any difference.”

She gives a shrug. “Everything makes a difference,” she says. “It’s usually helpful if someone can come along, to be briefed on what to tell the family – ”

“I’ll go,” Logan says. “At least I actually _know_ his family.” He turns to Veronica and says, “You’ll be okay?”

She nods. “I’ll be fine,” she says, and they exchange a quick kiss.

Cassidy says nothing as he heads towards the car door. Then Mac reaches out and grabs him by the wrist. He turns around to face her, red-eyed and trembling. “I’m not going to say I’ll wait for you,” she says. “I don’t know . . . how I feel about anything right now. I need some time . . . like, a lot of time . . . to work through all of this. But . . . I want to see you again, Cassidy. I don’t want this to be our last meeting. So try to . . . to get better. Okay? Do you promise to try?”

Cassidy has to swallow hard before he can speak. Then he nods and says, “I promise.”

Mac hugs him, tightly, for just a minute. Then the woman from Oblivion opens the door of the car. Cassidy climbs in, and Logan follows him.

“Do you need anything from me?” Stiles asks.

“Not that we don’t already have,” she says. She gives him a look up and down. “You’re not what I expected.”

“And yet I am exactly what I appear to be,” Stiles replies.

The woman gives a snort and climbs into the car. A few moments later, it drives away.

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

It’s late by the time they get back to the house. Mac is still somewhat shocky, but Veronica has a tight grip on her, keeping her upright. Despite that, her gaze darts over to Stiles every few moments. He gets them inside and ushers her into the living room. “So . . . how are you feeling?”

“Uh . . . there should be a word for wanting to run and run until this goes away and maybe punch Cassidy in the face or cry or use you like a pillow. All at the same time. Right now.” Mac gives a sniffle. “Crappy. The word is crappy.”

“Well, fortunately for you, I have a good cure for crappy,” Stiles says. “It’s a sofa, a mug of hot chocolate, a DVD of Red Versus Blue. And me! I’m part of the cure.”

“The running is tomorrow,” Derek tells her quietly. “When the pack gets back, we’ll find a place and you can run until it’s out of your system.”

Mac tries to smile. “We might have to go up into the mountains to find somewhere that I can do that much running.”

Stiles gives a little shrug as he dives into the cabinet for the cocoa. “If that’s what we need to do, then that’s what we’ll do. Cocoa, Veronica?”

Veronica nods. “Please.”

Derek stands close to Mac while Stiles works – because of course with Stiles it’s not as simple as a packet of Swiss Miss – and then steps away for a moment, seeing how tense and edgy she is. “Hang on.” He moves back to the door and all the jackets and sweatshirts that have piled up on hooks there as the weather has grown colder. He comes back with one of Stiles’ hoodies. “Here.”

Mac reaches for it automatically, but asks, “Why are you giving me a sweatshirt?” But when she pulls it closer, she can smell Stiles all over it and suddenly she’s hugging it and shoving her face into it. “Oh,” she says, her voice muffled by the fabric.

“That’s a little . . .” Veronica trails off, not wanting to insult Mac by saying ‘weird’.

“Marshmallows?” Stiles asks, for all intents and purposes oblivious to what’s going on around him.

Mac’s eyes peek out over the sweatshirt and she nods. “Yes, please.”

“We’re wolves, Veronica,” Derek says to her, because it’s becoming clear that she’s really going to have to understand this. “It’s not just a neat trick that affects how we look on the outside. It’s not all we are, but it can’t be separated out, either.”

“That . . . yeah, I’m getting that,” Veronica says. “I mean, I’m not trying to be rude, it’s just . . . from an outside perspective, it’s kind of weird. You know?”

“Oh, trust me, we know,” Stiles says. “Derek grew up with it, but it took a lot of getting used to for the rest of us. The instincts, the impulses, they couldn’t be ignored. But at the same time some of us had the urge to resist at least a little. I mean, try being a sixteen year old boy who suddenly wants to have sleepovers with his friends every night. Every. Night. And not just ‘in his room’ but ‘in his bed’.”

“How do you learn to live with it?” Veronica asks.

“Yeah, and is that going to happen to me?” Mac pipes up. “Because my parents will notice that something is up.”

“Well, yeah, it’ll happen to you, but we’re used to hosting illicit sleepovers when necessary,” Stiles says. “And it does get better with time. I mean, in addition to all the wolf stuff, I was fucking _traumatized_ , this was right after Peter Hale swept in and fucked all our lives sideways with a corkscrew . . . sorry, Derek . . . and so we were all pretty freaked out. It’s nowhere near as bad as it used to be. But it’s not learning to live with it. We enjoy it. So we make accommodations.”

“No, uh . . . that’s a pretty good description of what he did,” Derek says. “We were both traumatized. He murdered Laura.” Derek clearly forced those words out, and then he rubs both hands over his face. “The point is that we’re tighter knit than normal.”

“But hey, that’s okay!” Stiles says, turning around with two mugs of cocoa and handing one to Mac. “Because you’re traumatized, too, so we know how it is.”

“Because my boyfriend used me to murder people when I was a lizard.” The hand she’s holding the mug in starts to shake. Derek wraps his hand around hers to steady it. “I guess he’s my ex-boyfriend now, though.”

“Well, at least he didn’t know it was you,” Veronica says, taking the other mug from Stiles. She’s not feeling a lot of love for Cassidy at the moment, but she knows that pointing this out will make Mac feel better. “I mean, that would have just been a whole new level of awful.”

“He felt a good time to invite me to a romantic overnight was literally an hour after he killed Goodman,” Mac says, and takes a sip of her cocoa. “Can I have some liquor in this?”

“We can’t get drunk on normal alcohol,” Derek informs her. “Our metabolisms are too fast.”

“That sucks,” Mac says.

“Well, you _can_ ,” Stiles says, “but you have to drink a _lot_ of it. You’ll be okay.” He puts an arm around her shoulders and pulls her into a half-hug, pressing his cheek against her hair. “You’ll be fine.”

Mac turns into his embrace. “You sure?” she asks. Derek starts herding Veronica into the living room to give Mac a few minutes of quiet. He figures he can get the DVD set up.

Stiles rubs a comforting hand over her hair. “Trust me. A lot of awful things have happened in my life, but we always come out on top. I’m like one of those boxing dolls. Life hits me and I just spring right back up. And you are going to be right there with me. Not trying to come onto you or anything, but . . . well, let the wolf in you listen to this, okay? I am here for you. Whatever you need. I will take care of you, and _nothing_ will hurt you while I’m around.”

Derek’s head snaps up and towards Stiles, and he nearly drops the DVD case. “Fuck,” he blurts out as he tries to catch it, grabbing it just before it hits the floor, although he does it absently, attention still on what’s happening in the kitchen.

“What, what is it?” Veronica demands, feeling tension start crawling up her spine.

“Stiles just adopted her into the pack,” Derek says. He’s clearly startled, but not upset.

“Is that . . . bad?” Veronica ventures.

“No. Pack is never bad. Or never should be bad, anyway. It’s family. And Stiles is a good alpha. He has a good instinct for it.” Derek moves back towards the kitchen, but cautiously, not wanting to interrupt. He stops in the doorway, clearly waiting for permission to come in. Stiles is still holding Mac, and she’s gone limp against his shoulder while he stands there rubbing comforting circles into her back. He looks up when Derek comes in, his eyes gleaming crimson, and then blinks.

“Oh, shit, I . . . I just meant to make her feel better,” he says, somewhat chagrined.

“I guess what she needed to feel better was a pack,” Derek says, with a little shrug.

“Well, hopefully the others won’t mind that I skipped . . . all the protocol,” Stiles says. He releases Mac but leaves an arm around her shoulders. “Better?”

Mac nods. “Much. More . . . steady.” She tucks her hair behind her ear. “The pack thing is a big deal, isn’t it,” she adds, giving Derek a shy, worried look.

Derek finally moves into the kitchen and walks over to them. “It is, but it’s a good thing,” he says, rubbing a hand over her hair like Stiles had, then leaning down to rub his cheek against hers in greeting. He gives Stiles a dry look and says, “I’m making you explain.”

“Because everyone loves it when I try to explain things,” Stiles says, rolling his eyes. “But, well, it is sort of like an adoption. We’re all a big family. I’m the dad and Derek is the mom, and everyone else is brothers and sisters and we’re all . . . family-like. Except there’s magic involved. Which means that there’s a bond that draws us together, that lets us know how the others are feeling, if they’re in danger, if something’s wrong. It makes us want to spend time together even if, in normal social circles, these are people we would never speak to. Like, say, Lydia and Danny. Pack just . . . it’s just pack. You can’t explain it. You just have to _feel_ it.”

Derek gives that huffing noise that’s a precursor to a laugh. “I meant, I was going to make you explain to the rest of the pack. But that wasn’t bad, really.”

“Oh! Shit,” Stiles says, and rubs a hand over the back of his head. To Mac and Veronica, he says, “It’s, uhm, kind of bad form for me to accept new pack members without getting everyone’s approval first. I mean, it’s not like you’re a complete stranger and I’m sure they won’t mind, but still. They, uh, they might be annoyed.”

“With him, not at you,” Derek says to Mac. “You, we just want to cuddle. Let me know when you feel up to having me explain the basic mechanics of being a werewolf and being in a pack.”

“Information is good,” Mac says. “I would love information. I think . . . it might help me process.”

“C’mon, then,” Stiles says, tugging her into the living room and settling down on the sofa.

 

~ ~ ~ ~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't actually intend for Stiles to add another pack member in this fic.... damn him, every time I turn around, he adopts another stray!


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Man, Stiles is just being himself with a vengeance in this chapter =D
> 
> That's all for now, folks! Come follow me at http://gingersnapwolves.tumblr.com for updates on future fics in this series or just in general! Thanks for reading! *blows kisses*

Stiles pulls Mac down so she’s sitting next to him, with room for Derek on the other side. Veronica sits down on the coffee table so she can face them. Derek nods and settles down next to her. “This is the basic version. If you need more detail, you can feel free to ask.” He looks over at Veronica to make sure she understands that she’s welcome to ask questions as well.

“Shoot,” Mac says. “Werewolf 101.”

“We’re stronger and faster than humans, even in our human form. Better reflexes, et cetera. We don’t get sick, or hardly ever get sick. One wolf out of hundreds might catch something particularly virulent, but even then we shake it off within hours. Unless it’s magic, which is different. So kiss your days of having the flu goodbye. We also heal. Cuts disappear, bruises don’t even show, bones will mend in an hour or so if nothing is displaced. Our idea of fatal is different.”

“Holy shit,” Mac says. “That sounds awesome. What’s the catch?”

“Hunters, mainly,” Derek says. “We do have some weaknesses that humans don’t. Silver is bad news, hunters aside. Skin contact lasting more than a minute or two will start to burn. If it enters our bloodstream it causes excruciating pain. Aconite, wolfsbane, is exactly what it sounds like. It’s toxic to both humans and werewolves, but there’s a order of magnitude. And, uh, I hope your parents don’t like hanging mistletoe at Christmas.”

“It blocks supernatural energy,” Stiles explains, and snorts with laughter. “God, now I’m remembering our first Christmas together. Not the one we spent in the hospital, the one after that. When all of a sudden nobody could get into the house and we couldn’t figure out why.”

Derek shakes his head. “Not _all_ supernatural energy. Mostly just werewolves and other shifters. A lot of sorcerers and witches love the stuff.”

“Well, my parents love plastic stuff,” Mac says, “so I don’t really have to worry.” She looks at Veronica. “Plastic. Mistletoe. Why did it take me seventeen years to figure out I wasn’t their child?”

Veronica shrugs and puts her hands up in surrender. “Family is a hard thing to judge. Duncan and I thought we might be half-siblings for a while.”

“Now that is a story that I want to hear,” Stiles says, “some other time when we don’t have werewolf related stuff to deal with.” He still has Mac pulled against his shoulder, almost into his lap, and his thumb is twitching against her shoulder. “Although really, nature versus nurture is some interesting stuff. I mean, I am _so_ like my dad in some ways but so _unlike_ him in other ways. There have been some really neat studies of identical twins who were separated at birth, and – ”

“Focus, Stiles,” Derek interjects, amused.

“No, really, there was this pair that both married women who had the same name, I think it was Betty, and then they named their kids the same thing, and named their dogs the same thing, it was totally creepy – ”

“Do you need some caffeine?” Derek asks. He reaches along the back of the sofa behind Mac, running a couple fingers gently over the back of Stiles’ neck. He’s careful not to use his whole hand, which could turn into a grab or a hold.

Stiles blinks at him. “I took my Adderall at like five AM because I woke up super early, but everything’s been so crazy that I’ve . . . am I being that bad?”

“No. Well, you were fine until you got sidetracked by the twins thing,” Derek amends. Normally he wouldn’t care, or would even find it endearing, but there’s Mac, brand-new to being a wolf and brand-new to the pack, and he knows Stiles will kick himself later if he can’t stay focused on what she needs.

“Maybe the adrenaline is finally wearing off,” Stiles says. “I’ll go get a soda.” He gives Mac’s shoulder a squeeze and says, “Be right back, okay?”

Mac sighs a little and says, “Okay,” before moving from Stiles’ shoulder to Derek’s.

“On the continued topic of health and safety, did you have any health conditions? Take any medications?” Derek asks.

“Uh,” Mac says, her face flushing a little pink. “Well, I took birth control pills. Y’know. But other than that, no.” She suddenly looks horrified. “Oh God! If I got pregnant, would I have babies or puppies?!”

“Cubs,” Stiles calls in from the kitchen. “Wolves have cubs, not puppies.”

Derek resists the urge to laugh. “You’re not helping, Stiles.” He smoothes his hand over Mac’s hair and says, “Babies. Ten fingers, ten toes, pink skin – or whatever color would be appropriate depending on the parents – no fur. There’s a chance they could be werewolves from birth, but that would depend partly on whoever the father of the children was. But you’d carry human babies, and only one at a time. Unless your family is prone to multiples, you’d have the same odds of twins that any other woman would.”

“Whew.” Mac relaxes. “That’s a huge relief, which doesn’t make any sense, given that I had absolutely no plans to have children any time soon. So, uh . . . I guess I don’t really need to keep taking my pills, anyway. I mean, I started taking them because Cassidy and I were getting kind of serious, but . . .” She rubs a hand over her eyes. “That clearly isn’t going to be a problem anymore.”

Derek rubs a hand up and down her arm. “I’m sorry.”

“Look at it this way,” Veronica says, reaching out to pat Mac on the knee, “you’re still not the person in the room with the worst taste in men. After all, I’m dating Logan.”

“Who we did decide only counted as half a person,” Mac remembers.

Stiles comes back in with a can of Coke, already half empty, and an unopened one in his other hand. “If we’re going to talk about bad taste in . . .” he starts, and then realizes that maybe talking about Derek and Kate is really not the best of ideas, although it would certainly take the prize. “Shit, I really am loopy,” he says, and takes another drink of the Coke. “Derek, continue your Werewolf 101 lecture.”

Derek looks up at Stiles and gives him a silent nod, glad that he had managed to curb himself. “I’ve been informed that there’s an adjustment period while your hearing improves, and for a few days you’ll have a hard time filtering signal from noise. You’ll have to talk to the others to get tips for dealing with that. If you ever get hurt in a public place, hide it and lie. Otherwise people will ask way too many questions. We’ll give you a crash course on maintaining cover. Some things we can’t stop, so we adapt to make socially acceptable.”

“Like . . . beating the crap out of a bunch of football players?” Veronica asks, arching her eyebrows.

“Are we calling that acceptable now?” Stiles asks, grinning at her.

“There are two very important reasons why an alpha has enforcers,” Derek says.

“Oh, yeah, the mob talk,” Veronica says. “I want to hear this.”

“One: the alpha lays down the laws and expects that they’re going to be obeyed. If he or she has to come down and get their hands dirty in the more routine things, it generally means that either they don’t trust their pack – which makes them look weak – or the pack can’t handle getting it done – which makes the pack look weak. Two: they’re the _alpha_. If it gets to the point where they’re personally involved, you’re pretty much fucked. They aren’t going to stop until the problem has been ruined to their satisfaction. Because that’s their nature. The nature of an alpha. They don’t bow to anyone besides their pack. So they have enforcers who do dirty work for them. Without being asked and without needing specific direction.”

“Then . . . why were you the one who beat the stuffing out of those assholes?” Mac asks, her brow furrowed.

“It’s interesting interplay,” Stiles says. “If those guys had been bothering _me_ , it would have been up to the pack to take care of them. But they weren’t. Honestly, their homophobic comments didn’t bother me and their opinion of my life meant less than zero to me. It was, however, bothering Danny. And Danny is in my pack. And that makes it my job to protect him, take care of him, and deal with anything that’s bothering him.” As if quoting, he says, almost formally, “The role of the alpha is to protect the pack, and the role of the pack is to protect the alpha.”

Derek glances over at him. “Who’d you get that from? It’s the second time I’ve heard you say it, just like that.” He pauses and adds, “Sounds like Ravinder, or maybe Mei.”

“Yeah, Ravinder said that to me the first time I met him,” Stiles says. “The others were kind of poking fun at me for having brought Erica along to watch my back, and I had said that it wasn’t like you guys would’ve let me go out alone while they were in town. He was making a point to the others about how that actually made me a good alpha, not a bad one.”

“That really is a strange pack,” Derek says. “Ravinder’s always putting them in their place even though he’s totally not the leader.”

“Of course not,” Stiles says, mildly amused. “He’s an enforcer.”

Derek rolls his eyes. “You enjoyed that, didn’t you. It’s hard to identify an enforcer when half the pack wants the alpha to drop dead.”

“That can happen?” Mac asks, eyes somewhat wide. Her gaze darts over to Stiles as if she can’t quite comprehend it.

“Yes,” Derek says, more serious than before. “You can get bad alphas. You can get alphas that are perfectly good alphas but you just happen to not get along with.” He leans forward a little to meet her gaze. “This is one of the most important things you need to know. You _always_ have the choice and the right to leave your alpha. You’re stronger and safer with a pack, but there are other packs. Never feel like you’re held prisoner to the one you’re in.”

Mac swallows, and she again glances to Stiles as if waiting for him to contest this or maybe make a joke, but he doesn’t. He just sits there, sipping his soda, waiting for her to acknowledge that she understands. So she nods and says, “Okay.”

Derek lets that sit for a moment to see if there’s anything else she wants to say or ask about it. He thinks about offering examples, but decides to leave that for werewolf 201. Since Mac seems content to just cuddle for the moment, he continues. “Since we’re on the subject of packs, here are the basics. We’re stronger in packs. Obviously, we’re pack animals, so it’s what we want and where we’re most content, but I mean it literally. A wolf in a pack is physically stronger, faster, and better able to heal than a lone wolf. This increases with the size of the pack and also with how close-knit the pack is. A close pack of ten might be the equal to a pack of fifteen that are only nodding friends.”

“Well, that explains a lot about you guys, then,” Veronica says. “I mean, you seem . . . really close. And also really . . . awesome.”

“We are really awesome!” Stiles says cheerfully. “But no, seriously, we are a powerful pack. Which still seems weird to me, given how it all got started, but we are.”

“What?” Derek asks, arching his eyebrows, obviously amused. “One fucked up omega, one crazy alpha, a clueless turned ‘wolf, his hunter girlfriend, whatever you want to call Lydia, and a neurotically determined human?”

“Aw, Derek, you say the sweetest things,” Stiles says, making a kissy face at him. Veronica giggles. “Oh! Yeah, that’s something else we might want to explain. Derek’s my lupa. That’s the pack position for the alpha’s mate. It’s . . . kind of a mystical thing, like a soulmate thing, just accept that and move on with your lives. But he’s not actually my boyfriend. Y’know, just in case you care. I’m straight.”

“By straight, he means that he’s screwing Erica,” Derek adds, just to put it out there, mostly for Mac, whose senses would pick up on that as soon as the rest of the pack was back. Some things needed to be explained to her. “They aren’t dating.”

“Nah, we’re just friends with benefits,” Stiles says. “Really, really awesome benefits.”

“Wait, so . . .” Veronica is staring at him. “You did all that . . . with your car . . . and Tad Duvall . . . and that thing on the beach . . . and you’re _not even gay_?”

“Yup,” Stiles says, grinning broadly.

“It upset Danny,” Derek states flatly. “That wasn’t acceptable.”

“Yeah, but . . . painting your car rainbow colors? Sitting in Derek’s lap down at the Java Hut?” Veronica asks.

“Hell, I’d make out with Derek at the Java Hut if it would help out one of my pack,” Stiles says with a careless shrug.

“What do I care if he sits in my lap,” Derek says. “I lay in his lap all the time.”

Veronica just shakes her head. “I know this is somehow ridiculous on top of magic and monsters, but somehow _this_ strikes me as the craziest thing you’ve done the entire time you’ve been here.”

Stiles grins at her. “What can I say? I have to admit that part of it had nothing to do with alphas or werewolf pack dynamics or Danny. That was just me being a prick to someone who was a prick to me first. Where’s the fun in life if you can’t do things with a bang?”

Derek looks at him over Mac’s head. “How did you survive your own childhood?”

“You remember that I was like the _least_ popular kid in school prior to the werewolf thing, right?”

“No, that was Erica,” Derek says.

“No, even Erica could’ve gotten a date sooner than me, if only by virtue of the fact that she has lady parts and I don’t.”

Mac rolls her eyes. “Well, you two certainly bicker like an old married couple. You’ve got that down.”

Derek frowns at Mac, although it’s not one of his good ones. There are no eyebrows involved. Stiles just grins even wider and says, “Yeah, we totally do. It’s because he has yet to acknowledge that I’m always right.”

“I dare you to repeat that,” Derek says, staring him down.

Stiles purses his lips. “He has yet to acknowledge that I’m right more often than I’m wrong?”

“Better,” Derek says. “I no longer feel an unstoppable urge to inform them of all the times that you were wrong.” He considers, then adds, “That I know about.”

“Eh, you can tell them,” Stiles says cheerfully. “I don’t mind. It always works out, though.”

Derek employs both the Eyeroll of Epicness and the Eyebrows of Judginess. “Like now. Thus proving his point. Even when he does something really stupid, it’ll work out because the pack will save his skinny butt.”

“Hey, isn’t that what the pack is supposed to do?” Stiles asks, smirking at him.

“Yes, and then remind you about it in the vain hope that you’ll learn better.” Derek rubs his cheek almost absently against the top of Mac’s head, as she’s still cuddled up to him. “He really is a good alpha, though. Don’t worry.”

Mac lets out a hiccupy little laugh and says, “Of all the things I was worried about, that wasn’t actually one of them.”

“What are you worried about?” Derek asks.

“I guess, just, all that stuff you see in the movies about werewolves . . . am I going to turn into some sort of monster at the full moon and try to eat people and stuff?”

Derek makes an amused noise. “How’s your temper?” he asks, but sobers almost immediately. “No. Only alphas can turn people, so you don’t have to worry about accidentally making more werewolves. We’ll teach you to control the shift so it will be voluntary by your second or third full moon. The closer we get to the full moon, the more touchy and edgy we get, short-tempered, but you’re always _you_. Even when you shift, you’re still you.” He gives her a few seconds to digest that. “And you won’t be alone. I don’t know what we’ll do in the future, but for now we’re here, and you won’t be alone. The others say it gets easier after the first few months. If you lose your temper or try to do something you shouldn’t while you’re still learning, we’ve got you covered. We’ll watch out for you.”

“Okay.” Mac takes a deep breath and lets it out, somewhat shakily. “Okay, I think . . . I can handle this.”

“Trust me, everyone did stupid shit their first full moon,” Stiles says dryly. “Hell, Erica _still_ does stupid shit around the full moon, and so will Scott if he’s provoked. But according to Lydia, if you can learn to control yourself during PMS, you can learn to control yourself during the full moon.”

“Spoken like a guy who has never had PMS,” Veronica says with a snort of laughter. “According to Logan, I turn into a weapon of mass destruction at that time of the month.”

“Only then?” Mac asks.

Both Derek and Stiles let out a snort of laughter, glad that they hadn’t had to say it. Derek clears his throat and says, “I remember this one time when Laura was PMSing _during_ the full moon, and there was this guy being a jackass to one of the other waitresses at the diner where she worked. He nearly had her in tears. Laura said she would handle him. She walked over and just _stared_ at him. She never moved or said a word, no matter what he said to her. After a few minutes he threw a fifty dollar bill down onto the table and _ran_ from the diner.”

Stiles reaches out somewhat absently to grip Derek’s forearm during this story, knowing it can’t be an easy one for him to tell. But he doesn’t dwell on it, saying, “Erica made sure that she uses the birth control pills to keep that from happening. Pretty sure that’s the only reason we’re all still alive.”

“Ah, Erica,” Derek says. That’s all he has, because really, what can he say about Erica.

Stiles gives him a fond smile. “Have you used up your words?”

Derek arches an eyebrow at him and nods.

“Well . . . I feel better,” Mac says. “I mean, less ready to have a freak-out. And if I do have a freak-out, it’ll be less ‘I’m a werewolf’ and more ‘my boyfriend was a psychopath’. So, uh, I guess that’s good?”

Stiles shrugs a little. “I . . . feel bad for him. I know what he did was terrible, but . . . I can’t imagine what it’s been like for him.”

Derek opens his mouth, shifts uncomfortably, and then decides that what he’s about to say is maybe better left unsaid. Stiles glances over at him, and that hand on his forearm gives another squeeze, as if to say ‘I know’.

“If . . . if he had just killed Woody . . .” Mac chokes up a little. “I don’t know, I still would’ve been angry and, and worried about him, but . . .”

A little of the tension that Derek hadn’t even realized had built up melted away at Stiles’ attention and understanding. “But Cassidy crossed a line?”

“Cassidy crossed _all_ the lines,” Mac says, rubbing her eyes and leaning into Derek a little more heavily. “But at least he didn’t know it was me. I mean . . . that has to be worth something, right? That he didn’t realize it was me he was using as a weapon.”

“Yeah,” Derek says. “If nothing else, you know his affection for you was real,” he adds, because he hadn’t even had that. Kate had never even liked him.

“Maybe a little too real,” Mac says, clearly still creeped out that Cassidy’s idea of celebrating the death of the man who had molested him was to set up a romantic date with her. “Do you think . . . he’ll be okay, someday?”

“I don’t know, Mac,” Stiles says, reaching out to rub his hand over her hair. “I think he _can_ be. But maybe we’ll just have to wait and see what happens.”

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

Logan gets back to the Stilinski’s rented house at around one thirty in the morning, by which point everyone is asleep except Stiles. Mac has fallen asleep cuddled around Derek’s solid, reassuring bulk. Veronica is curled up on the cushions to her other side. Logan reports that after extensive discussion with the woman from Oblivion, the agreed-upon plan of action was to say nothing until Dick finally got around to noticing that his brother was gone. At that point, Logan would say something along the lines of, “Yeah, he’s on that semester abroad, don’t you pay attention to _anything_ that comes out of his mouth?” Oblivion would provide all necessary documentation to back up his claims, as needed. Logan doubts any of it will actually be needed.

Stiles isn’t so sure, mostly due to Cassidy’s financial games, but as it turns out, nothing is in Cassidy’s name. Since he’s only seventeen, everything was done with him as a silent partner; his step-mother Kendall was the public face. Everything will go to her now that Cassidy is gone. Logan isn’t thrilled about that, but he doesn’t see a way around it offhand. They agree to talk about it later. Logan sprawls out next to Veronica and is sound asleep a few minutes later.

Mac is obviously tense and edgy the next day. Stiles, recalling her desire to run, decides to drive them out of town a bit. He desperately misses the preserve, which is a great place to break in new wolves. Nowhere anywhere near Neptune is as unreservedly wild. But after an hour or so in the car, they’ve left the crowded coast enough to find a place to let off some steam.

“I used to know what this sort of terrain was called,” Stiles says. “It’s like . . . sage brush desert or something.”

“Wow,” Logan says. “Let me write down that bit of crucial information before I forget it.”

Stiles flips him off and says, “Nobody invited you anyway.”

This is technically true, but Mac wanted Veronica along and Logan goes where Veronica goes. Once Mac really gets going, it doesn’t matter. Veronica and Logan are left far behind. They eventually agree to wait and have a nice picnic (Stiles having surreptitiously packed one for them while they weren’t looking). Even he has trouble keeping up with Mac, who shifts into her partial form and just runs and runs and runs.

By evening, she’s exhausted, and she falls asleep on the car ride back to Neptune. She checks in briefly with her parents but only tells them the date ‘didn’t go well’ and she and Cassidy broke up, and she’s going to spend the night at Veronica’s. Her parents sympathize and have no objection to this, which is a relief to everyone. The gears are already turning in Stiles’ head about how he’s going to manage this long-term. He needs to make some phone calls, and possibly write some checks.

He knows the pack is leaving Beacon Hills mid-morning on Sunday and are scheduled to get back just before dinner. He sets up shop in the kitchen while Derek is out back with Mac. She seems comfortable in his presence, and he starts teaching her some of the finer points of controlling her strength and her reflexes. Stiles keeps half an eye on them but is busy explaining everything that’s happened to his father, who is understandably relieved that the killer has been caught and even more relieved that Stiles was able to apprehend him without bloodshed.

His phone rings around four thirty and he glances over to see that it’s Lydia. He picks up and says, “Stilinski day care; you wake ‘em, you take ‘em.”

“Sweetie, I think the children are already awake,” Lydia says, her tart tone of voice suggesting that he may want to look in a mirror, as he’s clearly the only child around. But there’s a hint of relief to it as well. Honestly, she would be worried about him if he picked up the phone in what most people would consider a normal fashion.

“Most likely,” Stiles says. “Hey, what’s your ETA? I’ve got, like, eight meatloafs – meat loaves? Why does calling it ‘meat loaves’ somehow make it sound disgusting? – to put in the oven and – ”

“About thirty minutes,” Lydia says. “I’ll take a vote on the plural of meat loaf before we get there,” she adds, her tone a little dry, though he knows she actually will.

“Cool,” Stiles says. “So, uh, why are you calling me?” he adds with an internal wince.

Lydia decides to skip right to it. “What have you done?”

Stiles hesitates. “Am I on speaker?”

“Do you want to be?” Lydia asks.

“Yeah, put me on,” Stiles says, and once she’s done so, continues, “Okay, guys, I want you to know that I’m _not_ trying to string you along but before I tell you what happened, for the sake of posterity, I want to hear what you’ve actually noticed and when you started noticing it.”

“We could feel the bond again a little over an hour ago,” Lydia says. “But it was just awareness of its existence at first.”

“Then things started to feel, I dunno, weird, about half an hour later,” Scott adds. “Not bad, just weird.”

“So you can feel me, and Derek,” Stiles says, wanting to clarify, “and you can feel that we’re okay, not hurt or anything, but something in general just feels off?”

“Pretty much,” Allison says, eyeing the phone. Her tone suggests that Stiles had better spill the beans immediately.

“Yeah, a lot happened,” Stiles says. “We caught the killer, it’s _not_ my fault that we didn’t call you, we managed to de-kanima Mac and turn her into a wolf, and, well, she kind of needed an alpha . . .”

Allison sighs. So does Lydia. “So you adopted her,” the redhead says.

“No more lizard?” Danny chimes in.

“No more lizard,” Stiles confirms. Hearing the note in Lydia’s voice, sounding unsure, he says, “Look, guys, I . . . I’m really sorry. I didn’t really do it on purpose, I just . . . she needed someone and it just, it _called_ to me. I couldn’t ignore it.”

Lydia sort of wants to forgive him already, and from the looks on the others’ faces, she’s pretty sure they agree. It’s clear that none of them like the uncertain tone that Stiles is using. But they’re only part of the pack. They’ll all have to work through this together. So she decides to skip around it for now. “We’ll talk later. How’s she doing?”

“She’s pretty shaken up,” Stiles says, “but less so by the werewolf transition and more so by the fact that Cassidy was our puppet master.”

“Cassidy?” several of the others in the car clamor.

“He didn’t know Mac was the kanima,” Stiles says. “Which makes it . . . a little better, I guess.”

“What did you do with him?” Allison asks, her voice a little thin. Although she’s obviously not pleased that he was killing people, it’s the fact that he was using Mac that makes her want to take a shot at him, even if he hadn’t known it was her.

“He got the supernatural equivalent of arrested and sentenced to ‘until he’s no longer psychotic’,” Stiles says. “Look, I’ll explain everything when you guys get back. Are . . . are you mad?”

“No,” Lydia says, after some consideration. She’s not angry, because it worked out, but she wants Stiles to think about what would have happened if it hadn’t. “But what would you have done if we didn’t like her?”

“I don’t think I would have done it, then,” Stiles says. “But if I had, I would just have to find her a local pack, somehow.”

“Okay,” Lydia relents.

Stiles lets out a breath, almost a sigh, of relief. “Who’s driving the other car? Do you know?”

“Either Boyd or Isaac,” Scott says. “They might have changed after lunch.”

“Okay. Thanks. I’ll see you guys soon.” Stiles says his goodbyes, contemplates his phone for a few moments, and then dials Erica.

Erica obviously looks at the caller ID before she answers, because she picks up with, “What’s up, hot stuff?”

“Hey, you,” Stiles says. “Wanted to know if you guys had noticed anything different about the bond since you were coming back into range. I’m doing, uh, scientific research.”

“Uh huh.” Erica sounds dubious. “Sure you are. The last time we were doing scientific research, we – ”

Her voice is suddenly muffled by a hand over her mouth, and Isaac says, “For God’s sake, don’t tell me whatever you discovered about your vagina.”

“Uh,” Boyd says. “To actually answer your question, yeah, actually. I mean, I noticed a difference, not that I want to hear about Erica’s vagina.”

“Figured,” Stiles says, with a snort of laughter. “But I figured I would warn you before you got back that we got Mac all shifted into a werewolf, and she was kind of upset, and so I may have unintentionally adopted her into the pack, and yes you have every right to be pissed at me, you can smack me around if you want.”

Erica wetly licks Isaac’s palm, and he jerks his hand away. “Eww, Erica,” he protests, and wipes his hand off on her shoulder. “Yeah, Stiles, ‘cause I’m going to be pissed at you for being nice to someone who needs it.”

“You’re the only one who doesn’t get to be pissed at me, after you invited Logan into the pack without my okay,” Stiles says, amused. “But everyone else can be pissed if they want. Mac is nice and we all like her, but it was still a serious breach of pack etiquette. Lydia already yelled at me.”

“No scary, intimidating dinner,” Erica agrees.

Stiles gives a snort. “Yeah, you were _real_ intimidated.”

“I absolutely was, and don’t you forget it,” Erica snipes back without heat.

“I hate to ask this,” Boyd chimes in, “but what are you going to do when we all move back to Beacon Hills?”

“I’m working on that,” Stiles says. “Oh, and speaking of stuff I’m working on, I need to get dinner in the oven. I’ll see you guys soon?”

“Sure,” Erica says. “Don’t adopt anyone else while we’re gone,” she adds cheerfully, before hanging up before Stiles can unleash a witty retort.

He rolls his eyes and goes back to the meatloaf. His father watches him for a minute before saying, “Everything okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, everything’s cool,” Stiles says.

“You look deep in thought,” Stilinski says.

“Coastal sage scrub!” Stiles declares. “I remembered!”

Stilinski sighs. “Stiles, get me a beer.”

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

Surprisingly, everything settles back to normal with relative speed. The pack welcomes Mac with just as much wolf cuddling as she wanted. Veronica and Logan get plenty of wolf cuddles, too, despite Logan’s vociferous protesting that it isn’t necessary. Veronica seems to be a little incredulous that all this is even happening. “You get used to it,” Stiles tells her.

They eat meat loaf – Mac has a grilled cheese – and drink soda and celebrate their new pack member with many toasts and then cupcakes.

At school, everything is normal. Nobody comments on Cassidy’s absence. Veronica is surprised to realize how much of a shadow Cassidy really was. She feels bad for him, despite everything, and hopes that the people at Oblivion are able to help him. Stiles just nods and says nothing when she mentions this.

Meanwhile, Sheriff Stilinski has persuaded Deputy Leo that he would make a fine sheriff. A lot of the people in Neptune are a little hesitant, given his age, but then again nobody else is trying to get the job. A lot of the rich and famous of Neptune are still so shocked at Woody Goodman’s ‘suicide’ that they don’t seem to know what to think of anything anymore. They start to prepare for the transition. Stilinski tells the pack that they’ll definitely be able to leave at the end of the semester.

Neptune works on a school year schedule more like the one in college; finals are the second week of December and then there’s a three week winter break. The pack are thrilled by this idea that they’ll be able to get a long vacation before starting back at Beacon Hills for their last semester of high school.

When Sheriff Stilinski expresses concern about what’s going to happen with Mac, Stiles just flaps a hand at him and says, “Well, I talked to Chris, who talked to this guy at GM who owed him a favor, something about taking care of . . . leprechaun? I could have misheard that . . . and he talked to some other guy about how nice Neptune is and . . . long story short, I’m taking care of it.”

“Of course you are,” Stilinski says, amused.

And three nights later, Mac comes over after dinner and says, “Stiles, how in the hell . . .?”

Stiles just greets her with a big grin. “Something good happen?”

“Uh, yeah, maybe,” Mac says. “I come home from school and my parents are like ‘let’s sit down and have a family discussion’ and suddenly my dad got this great job offer in Beacon Hills, something about managing a dealership there, like ‘oh, no big deal, there’s just this car lot waiting for some guy to come handle things’. And it’s not like my dad is great at what he does, I mean, he’s okay, he sells cars, but this is a _huge_ promotion for him, and everyone’s acting like it’s totally normal! And my dad said he heard through the grapevine that apparently he helped a secret shopper last month – a _car_ secret shopper, or the cousin of some guy at corporate, or something – and they were really impressed with him, and since the manager at the Beacon Hills dealership was ready to retire, they recommended him. And they know that it’s awful to make me move when I only have one semester of high school left, but hey, at least I’ll have friends there, because Beacon Hills is where those transferred students are from! What are the odds, right?”

“What are the odds, indeed?” Stiles asks.

“You are such a shit!” Mac says, laughing. “You couldn’t have warned me?”

“I could have, but it was more fun to let it be a surprise,” Stiles says. He slings an arm around her shoulders. “So what did you tell them?”

“That I didn’t mind moving because I had never been a big fan of Neptune anyway. And that I wouldn’t mind getting away from the memories. You know. Cassidy.”

“All of which is true,” Stiles says, “so it all works out.”

Mac just shakes her head at him, then turns to the rest of the pack and says, “Is he always like this? Just ‘oh, it all works out’ despite everything?”

“Pretty much,” Derek says, his voice and face sour. Stiles just gives him the usual innocent smile.

The next day at school, Veronica punches Stiles in the shoulder. “You stole my friend, jerk.”

“Guilty,” Stiles says. “I didn’t see any other way. We couldn’t just leave her omega.”

“You still suck,” Veronica says.

“You’ll just have to come visit,” Stiles says.

Veronica makes a face at him, but then reaches out and grabs his hand. He laughs and swings their arms back and forth as they walk down the hallway. “I’m really glad you came here,” Veronica says after a few moments.

Stiles just smiles at her. “Me, too.”

 

~ ~ ~ ~

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [With Friends Like These [PODFIC]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9502322) by [Opalsong](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Opalsong/pseuds/Opalsong)




End file.
